Since I specialize in the psychoanalysis of literature, I would like to talk about the concept of psychosexual stages and the Oedipus complex of Sigmund Freud.
Almost exclusively, English speaking people pronounce his name as surd-Sigmund; however, it is incorrect. His name has to be pronounced according to German pronunciation rule. The correct pronunciation is sonant-Z, more precisely [ˈziːkmʊnt ] in IPA phonetic symbols. Phonetically speaking, both sounds are classified as lingua-Alveolars Fricative Consonants, but the differences are: the former is surd and the latter is sonant.
For example, pronouncing his name as Sigmund is as strange as the name David called "Debit" by Japanese People according to Japanese pronunciation rule.
Furthermore, if you spell the word, mother, the vowel of the first syllable is "o"; however, nobody wouldn't call m[ʌ]ther as m[ɔ]ther.
When I pronounce his name as Zigmund, American people try to correct my pronunciation because I am not a native speaker of English; however, mine is correct and theirs are incorrect.
Psychosexual Development
Now, let's overview the Freudian theory.
Since Freud considered sexuality is a significant element, I would begin with the Freudian theory of Psychosexual development: the oral stage, the anal stage, and the phallic stage. Strictly speaking, Freud's psychosexual stages fall into five types from an infant to an adult; however, I would mention the first three stages, for they are important as an infantile development.
The oral stage is the first stage of personality development in which the libido is centered in a baby's mouth. The anal stage is the second stage in which the libido becomes focused on the anus. The phallic stage is the final stage of the infantile development, in which sensitivity becomes concentrated in the genitals. During the phallic stage, the mind starts creating inner conflict due to the unconscious repression. This is what is called, the Oedipus complex.
The Oedipus Complex
The Oedipus complex is the mechanism that people experience on the process of change from kid to adult, it signals the transition from the pleasure principle to the reality principle; from the enclosure of the family to society at large, and from Nature to Culture. What makes this change possible is the father's "threat of castration". This threat need not necessarily be spoken, and the father doesn't need to be actual father, it means a paternal figure to the subject.
The Outline of this process:
The process of castration is:
1) The boy, in perceiving that an opposite sex is the "castrated" existence, begins to imagine this as a punishment which might be visited upon himself.
2) Due to castration anxiety, he represses his incestuous desire. Being forced to detach from his mother, he submits to his father. Thus, he adjusts himself from the "pleasure principle" to the "reality principle".
3) Then, he comforts himself with the unconscious consolation. Though he cannot now hope to oust his father and possess his mother, his father symbolizes a place, a possibility, which he himself will be able to take up and realize in the future.
4) Through this entire process, he will be ready to install himself into a patriarchal subject. By his submission to his father, he reconciles with his father. Identifying himself within his father, he is led into the symbolic role of masculinity.
Overcoming the Oedipus complex, he has recognized himself in a masculine role as a gendered subject. On the other hand, however, his forbidden desire has been repressed in the place of which Freud denotes the "unconscious", so to speak, a reservoir of repressed desires. The unconscious domain was originally not ready to receive such desires, but it is created by the subject due to the act of primary repression.
