psychosexual maturity and the ability to love begin at puberty.
when do psychosexual maturity and the ability to love begin?
puberty,
sigmund freud has contributed to the idea of psychosexual disorders and furthered research of the topic through his ideas of psychosexual development and his psychoanalytic sex drive theory. according to freud's ideas of psychosexual development, as a child, one will progress through five stages of development. these stages being the oral stage (1 -1 1/2 yrs), the anal stage(1 1/2- 3yrs) phallic stage (3-5 yrs), the latency stage (5-12 yrs) and the genital stage (from puberty on). a psychosexual disorder could arise in an individual if the individual does not progress through these stages properly. proper progression through these stages requires the correct amounts of stimulation and gratification at each stage. if there is too little stimulation at a certain stage fixation occurs and becoming overly fixated could lead to a psychosexual disorder. in contrast, too much stimulation at a certain stage of development could lead to regression when that individual is in distress, also possibly leading to a psychosexual disorder.
psychosexual disorder
in 1905, freud developed the psychoanalytic distinction between clitoral and vaginal orgasm, with only the latter being identified with psychosexual maturity. this distinction has since been challenged among others on physiological grounds. for example, masters and johnson wrote: "are clitoral and vaginal orgasms truly separate and anatomic entities? from a biological point of view the answer to this question is an unequivocal no." however, a clinically grounded qualitative distinction between psychosexual maturity and immaturity was only introduced with reich's concept orgastic potency vs. orgastic impotence (instead of vaginal vs. clitoral). as masters and johnson focussed on phenomena shared by all sexual climaxes – ranging from what reich categorised as orgastic potency to impotence – their finding has no direct relevance to or implications for reich's distinction.
orgastic potency