Oral Phase

Literary/ Cultural Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)
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  • The Literary Encyclopedia. WORLD HISTORY AND IDEAS: A CROSS-CULTURAL VOLUME.

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Freud recognised the importance of suckling and weaning in the formation of the psyche, an area of psychoanalysis which later received particular development by Melanie Klein. In the Oral Stage the child.s relationship to the not-I is structured by the sensuous pleasure experienced in the mouth by suckling and the processes of ingestion and incorporation. This pleasure usually centres the growing love-relationship with the mother and is primordial to all later love-relations but it is not without its conflicts, notably the question of presence and absence, the experience of being full then howlingly empty, and, later, around teething and weaning, confused fantasies about eating the mother.s body and fears of being eaten by her. The experience of weaning is indeed now thought to be…

275 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Oral Phase". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 October 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1607, accessed 19 March 2024.]

1607 Oral Phase 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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