Anal stage

The anal stage is a concept of Psychanalyse describing the third phase of the emotional evolution of a human baby. It succeeds the Oral stage and is characterized by a focusing of the child on the rectal area. This period is played from 1 to 3 years on average. The child discovers the pleasure which the fact gets to him of retaining the feces (retention) or to expel them (defecation). Let us remind that it is also, this age, the period of opposition. In the anal stage, the loss of the excrements is comparable, by the young child, with the loss of part of its body; the child can be distressed about it. The " fruit social" of this anal stage is autonomy in space.

infantile Sexuality

Around two years, the child starts to control his Sphincter S, and the anus becomes an erotogenic zone under the influence of the requirement for cleanliness expressed by the parents. The anus, zone of passage between the interior of the body and the outside world, is subjected to the Volonté of the child who realizes that it can prevent expulsion and thus withdraws from it a pleasure of retention rising from the application of its will. It gradually takes conscience of the relief related to the fact of letting leave: it is the discovery of the pleasure of expulsion. It is frequent that the child is interested in his saddles and handles them, explores them or the exhibe (like it also does it with his toys).

The fecal roll stimulates the Erotogenic zone, and is perceived by the child as part of his body which it loses. This part is developed and can thus be used as currency of exchange. To like means at this stage to give and to keep, the possessivity is one of the dominant aspects of the anal stage. The child can satisfy his mother while letting leave to the place and the time when this one wishes it. He can be also opposed to it while retaining, it is the development of a feeling of any power in the child. It is the mother who will print the concept of dirtiness and the feeling of dislike, creating in the child the assimilation of his rejections to a defended pleasure, with the interdict. The child can conceive the retention like an opposition to the mother. Expulsion is an expression of aggressiveness.

It is a transition towards a more complex emotional level during which the child passes from the experimentation of cleavage (succession/alternation of feelings opposed with respect to the same object) to that of ambivalence (mixture of opposite feelings felt simultaneously in an intermingled way).

Karl Abraham

Abraham divides the anal-sadistic stage, clearly marking the difference between the pleasure of déféquer, and that of the retention specific to the child after training of cleanliness. It will name the first stage of expulsion and the second stage of retention . These two under-organizations of the infantile of libido development will be strongly related to the aspect of destructiveness inherent in the Sadisme which is the second leaning one of this stage according to Freud.

Anal stage and Psychopathology

The anal stage is implied more particularly:

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