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Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), a Viennese physician, is credited as the father of the psychoanalytic perspective. Freud believed that much of our behavior is driven by unconscious impulses that are outside of our awareness. He described development as the progression through a series of psychosexual stages, periods in which unconscious drives are focused on different parts of the body, making stimulation to those parts a source of pleasure. Freud explained that the task for parents is to strike a balance between overgratifying and undergratifying a child’s desires at each stage to help the child develop a healthy personality with the capacity for mature relationships throughout life. Notably, Freud did not study children; his theory grew from his work with female psychotherapy patients (Crain, 2016).

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), the father of the psychoanalytic perspective, believed that much of our behavior is driven by impulses that we are unaware of and cannot control.

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Many of Freud’s ideas, such as the notion of unconscious processes of which we are unaware, have stood up well to the test of time and have permeated popular culture. Notably, Freud’s theory was the first to emphasize the importance of early family experience and especially the parent–child relationship for development (Bargh, 2013). However, the psychosexual stage framework’s emphasis on childhood sexuality, especially the phallic stage, is unpopular and not widely accepted (Westen, 1998). In addition, unconscious drives and other psychosexual constructs are not falsifiable. They are not supported by research because they cannot be directly observed and tested (Miller, 2016).