The Role of Breast-Feeding in Psyghosexual Development and the Achievement of the Genital Phase

Bibliographic Data

ID8336348
AuthorsCharles N Sarlin (Box 1003 Pinetop, Arizona 85935, corresponding author)
Year1981
Volume29
Issue3
Pages631-641
Publication date1981-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0651 • E-ISSN: 1941-2460
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/000306518102900307
PMID7299034
OpenAlexW2081671324
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited16

1. The role of the neurohormone oxytocin is a physiological factor in the reproductive cycle of coitus, birth, breast-feeding, the milk-ejection reflex, nipple erotism, and female sexual responsiveness. 2. The capacity for "motherliness," the attributes of empathy, consideration, confidence, and love are dependent on the level of psychosexual, ego, and superego maturity of the mother as well as on the pattern of mothering she experienced as a child. 3. The satisfaction of the oral hunger-satiation cycle is essential. Without it, even the most satisfactory maternal environment proves insufficient and results in serious ego constriction. 4. Bottle-feeding, as breast feeding, may offer a relatively satisfactory solution to the basic, physiological, hunger-satiation cycle and may fulfill, to a limited extent, the libidinal requirements of the crucial oral phase, depending on the psychosexual maturity and ego and superego development of the mother. 5. However, breast-feeding alone provides the experience of the original primal scene on which the later primal scene is based. 6. The breast-feeding capacity in itself is no more an indication that psychosexual maturity and the genital phase have been achieved than is the ability to achieve vaginal orgasm (or genital orgasm, in the male). 7. Sherfey's (1966) findings notwithstanding, Freud's (1925) statement that the elimination of clitoral primary (not participation) is essential for the development of femininity remains valid

Breast feeding · Developmental psychology · Empathy · Id, ego and super-ego · Orgasm · Psychiatry · Psychosexual development · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics · Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum · Medicine · Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior · Psychology · Social Psychology · Pediatrics

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