Oral-Passive Personality free essay sample

According to Freud, there are five psychosexual stages, including oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency stage and genital stage. (Zimbardo, Johnson, McCann, 2008, p. 446) Once people were born, they immediately entered the oral stage and it lasted nearly two years. In this stage, baby’s main pleasure originated from his or her mouth. They obtain such pleasure through sucking, swallowing and biting. If a child experienced problems in those stages, the situation of fixation would occur and stay long when he or she grew up as an adult. (Schultz, 2008, p. 2) For example, chewing, smoking, nail-biting are the later fixated behaviors that appeared at adulthood. (Zimbardo, Johnson, McCann, 2008, p. 448) In a certain period of time, the baby has to abandon the initial source of satisfaction if he or she started to wean (Honig, Fitzgerald, Herb, 2001, p. 262). That could cause a profound effect on the child’s personality in the future. Shergill (2010) stated, â€Å"If you, in the first eight months of your life, are often frustrated in your need to suckle, perhaps because mother is uncomfortable or even rough with you, or tries to wean you too early, then you may develop an oral-passive character. We will write a custom essay sample on Oral-Passive Personality or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page They often retain an interest in â€Å"oral gratifications†. (p. 429) In other words, people who are too early to be weaned would be desperately in need with oral satisfaction in their adulthood. Consequently, the experience of gratification a child gains in infancy would lead to specific personality in adulthood. If the baby weaned either too early or too late, he or she will develop personalities like passiveness, dependence and gullibility. In my case, my mother weaned me so early because she had serious fever the time when she was feeding me. Therefore, I started to have formula. Owing to the lack of oral gratifications in infancy, I also built up other fixated behaviors like sucking upon pacifier until primary school and biting straws when I was drinking. One of the characteristics of oral-passive personality is dependent. Speaking of dependence, I have been always relied on my mother and my sister. When I do not know how to do my project in my college, I always need my sister’s guidance. Many decisions I do depend on her assistance. Sometimes, she even offers me several of them. When I was form 6 in high school, a big incident happened. I was supposed to go to school for the leader training day in summer holiday. However, my mum asked me to go to Mainland China with her and I agreed. So, I asked her to call the school to take personal day leave. A few days after, when I backed to school, I was summoned to the discipline office. And I had to fill in a form to explain the reason why I was absent on that day. Then I was told that my grade of conduct would be dropped from A- to C+. Therefore, I asked my mum for help because I did not want to be punished. Then my mum and I went to school to meet the dean in the morning during the next school day. My mum did the whole talking part. She spoke for me and I just sat down and said nothing. Only when the teacher questioned me, otherwise, I rarely open my mouth and speak. I was extremely passive in the conversation. Finally, my mum talked her over and I did not have to be punished. From this incident, my oral-passive personality is clearly shown. Due to the overindulgence in childhood, I become excessively dependent on my family. I want them to solve everything troublesome for me. I do not know how to deal with my problems and overcome my hardships. This incident is just a small stuff and anyone in that age should or can handle it by themselves. Nevertheless, I, an eighteen-year-old form 6 student, cannot cope with that little problem. That is all related to my gratification in infant. I lost the initial source of satisfaction of sucking from mother’s nipple too early and now I am frustrated in need of oral satisfaction. Hence, I love to suck upon pacifier when I was 6 and bite straws when I was drinking.