ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud developed the theory, based on his experience of psychoanalytic work, that the emotional development of the infant and child is closely related to their experience of bodily functions. He deduced that, from infancy onwards, there are childhood stages of in which parts of the body are invested with special qualities of excitability and sensuality, with corresponding emotions and fantasies. Some learning difficulties relate to early oral conflicts. Reading, in particular, seems to be equated in our minds with feeding. Like feeding, reading involves taking things in. The anal stage relates to toilet training. Before reaching that stage, the mother simply disposes of the baby’s dirty nappies, the baby just evacuates. At the age of about three to five years, children’s genital organs become the focus of sensual sensitivity and interest. Sometimes children feel stimulated in the genital region while being washed and obtain pleasure from that.
