Freud's psychosexual stages

Meaning: In Freud's psychoanalytic theory, personality develops through stages in which libido (psychic energy) centers on a particular body zone. In order: oral (about birth to 1 year, mouth), anal (about 1 to 3, toilet training), phallic (about 3 to 6, genitals; Oedipus and Electra complexes), latency (about 6 to puberty, sexual urges are subdued and energy goes to school and friends), and genital (puberty onward, mature sexual interest). Unresolved conflict at a stage, from frustration or overindulgence, can leave a fixation whose traits persist into adulthood.

On the MCAT: A vignette describes an adult habit and asks which stage is implicated. Smoking, nail-biting or overeating suggests an oral fixation; extreme orderliness (anal-retentive) or messiness (anal-expulsive) suggests an anal fixation. Other items ask for the order of the stages or link them to the id, ego, superego and defense mechanisms such as regression.

Common confusion: Students mix these up with Erikson's psychosocial stages (social crises such as trust vs. mistrust, spanning the whole lifespan) and Piaget's cognitive stages. Freud's stages are organized by erogenous zone and end with the genital stage. "Sexual" here means bodily pleasure broadly, not only adult sexuality.