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According to psychoanalysis, the second social and sexual stage of an infant's development (after the oral stage), in which the infant learns to control bowel movements. Freudian psychology maintains that children gain pleasure from both passing and withholding their feces. Psychoanalysts believe that development of an anal personality is associated with frustration over toilet training. (See also genital stage and pleasure principle.)
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
