Just out of random curiosity, does anyone out there know of any definitive symptoms of an oral fixation? And are there any sorts of clinical diagnoses that go along with them?
I’m an avid ice-muncher whenever ice is accessible in mass quantities. And, if I’m not eating or drinking at a specific time, I’m almost always smackin’ on a piece of gum, or I’m chewing peppermints/breath mints like there’s no tomorrow. And, I know this will sound weird, but I have this thing with the way words are spoken… Sometimes, I just like words because of the way my mouth feels when I’m saying them. So, do these things mean anything? I’ve always told people that I have an oral fixation, because it seems like an easy explination for my odd habits. But how can I tell whether or not i really do have an oral fixation?
I might be wrong…but…
I believe that “oral fixation” is an old Freudian term to refer to a state of arrested development. According to Mr. Freud, when you are a baby, you get your pleasure in diffeent ways at different stages. I belive the first is oral, where you derive pleasure from sucking on things and eating (presumably because thats how you get your nourishment). The next stage is anal, where you enjoy excretion (and holding back excretion). Finally, like most adults we know, your center of pleasure is your genitals.
Freud believed that development could be arrested at any of these stages. An “anal” person, for example, wants to have control over everything and is generally “anal retentive” (now we know where two expressions come from!). I can’t remember, but there might be another classification of anal fixation that is the opposite of anal retentive.
An oral fixation, is when you are stuck in the oral stage. I believe such luckless people have a losse, devil-pmay-care attidtude.
So “oral fixation” refers to a mental state (that has prbably been disproven), not physical activities.