Although psychodynamic approaches to social and emotional development are not currently popular in scientific psychology, they have had an enormous influence on the way we think about early childhood relationships. Sigmund Freud's theory of psychoanalysis, although based on his clinical observations of adults, was primarily concerned with the impact of early social relationships on later behavior. Later theories, such as Erik Erikson's, were similarly concerned with early relationships but broadened the discussion of them beyond the simple drives (and complicated consequences) of Freud's theory.

Freud divided childhood development into several stages. The first of these stages is the oral stage, during which the desire for pleasure (the libido) is satisfied through the mother's breast. During the second stage, the anal stage, the child derives pleasure through the excretion of feces. This comes into direct conflict, however, with attempts by the caregiver to toilet train the child. During the third stage, the phallic stage, the child derives pleasure through stimulation of the genitals. Here, according to Freud, the paths of male and female children diverge. Male children begin to desire their mother sexually, but they realize that they cannot do so without killing their father or somehow taking his place (Freud called this the "Oedipal complex"). Since actually killing their father is forbidden, male children instead identify with him, attempting to model their own beliefs and behaviors after his. Female children, on the other hand, begin to desire sexually their father, in part as a consequence of their own lack of a penis, which sexual intercourse can (in a way) rectify. They begin to resent their mother, in part as a consequence of feeling that their mother is responsible for their lack of a penis. However, since both having sex with the father and killing the mother are forbidden, they satisfy their desires by identifying with the mother. After the phallic stage, both male and female children go into a latency period that lasts until the early teen years, when they emerge into the genital stage. In this stage, pleasure is produced through heterosexual relations.

The implausibility of this account--and its blatant sexism--should be obvious, but it is important to keep in mind that Freud had an enormous effect on both lay and professional concepts of social and emotional development. Many of his assumptions are shared by today's researchers despite their rejection of almost all of his conclusions. Freud brought several assumptions to the foreground: that early life experiences before the age of six can have an enormous effect on the rest of an individual's life; that unconscious processes are the most important determinants of behavior; and that the child's social environment was as important to development as its genetic endowment.

Erik Erikson's theory of social development has not driven a great deal of research, but it is one of few examples of a theory that attempts to explain development over the whole of the life course. Erikson was psychoanalytically trained; like Freud, he believed that basic drives propelled humans through a series of life stages. Unlike Freud, however, he believed that social needs were the most important determinants. In Erikson's theory, each stage of life is characterized by attempts to resolve a particular social need. The stages are as follows: 1) Trust vs. mistrust (0-1 yrs); 2) Autonomy vs. shame/doubt (1-3 yrs); 3) Initiative vs. guilt (3-5 yrs); 4) Industry vs. inferiority (5-12 yrs); 5) Identity vs. identity confusion (adolescence); 6) Intimacy vs. isolation (young adulthood); 7) Generativity vs. stagnation (middle adulthood); and 8) Integrity vs. despair (late adulthood). Erikson believed that in each stage the individual confronted particular choices about how to define themselves and their place in society. In the first year, for instance, infants learn either to trust or not to trust their primary caregiver. The result of this choice has a permanent effect on the individual's development; if trust is not learned, the individual may be plagued by isolation and loneliness throughout life.