Stages of psychosexual development
Freud identified three stages in a child's development: oral, anal, and genital. Normally, an individual moves through the first two stages to the genital stage of adult maturity. However, it is possible to get stuck (fixated) in one of the earlier stages.
The oral stage is infancy, when the child relates to the world through the mouth: sucking, chewing, and biting. An adult with an oral fixation is thought to have difficulty controlling appetites. For example, smoking, overeating, nail biting, and gum chewing are associated with orality. Sarcasm (oral aggressiveness) is also associated with oral fixation).

In Psycho, Norman Bates eats candy throughout (a motif said to have been Anthony Perkins's idea). Eating is often associated with sexuality in Hitchcock's movies.
The anal stage is focused on toilet training, when the child learns to control bodily functions and is taught that certain bodily activities must be kept private. An anal fixation in adulthood is associated with excessive fastidiousness, neatness, cleanliness, and irritability.

Until Psycho, no mainstream American movie for over 50 years had shown a toilet - suggesting that the entire culture was anal fixated to some extent. Hitchcock took great pleasure in breaking this taboo.
Note Hitchcock's comment to Francois Truffaut: "When I take a bath, I put everything neatly back into place. . . . My passion for orderliness goes hand in hand with a strong revulsion toward complications."

Ego, Superego, & Id
Id: "What is a life or two Guy, some people are better off dead!"
Ego
 Superego: "Let me remind you that even the most unworthy of us has a right to life and the pursuit of happiness."
Freud also offered a structural model of the psyche symbolizing three mental functions in the following elements:

- The id is the basic instinctual drives of the human, seeking immediate gratification of the 'pleasure principle' in such areas as food and sex. The id is amoral and illogical, without responsibility.

- The Superego includes internalized codes of behavior, ideals, and spiritual goals. The superego includes what are usually called 'conscience' and 'guilt.' The Superego works in opposition to the id, restraining and prohibiting instinctual actions and fantasies.

- The Ego mediates between id and Superego, and is the center of the 'reality principle.' It includes what are usually called self-esteem, judgment, and self-control. The Ego does not simply repress the id, but seeks ways to gratify its urges in responsible ways.

In Freudianism, a successfully integrated personality is under control of the Ego.
Dream Analysis
Since dreams come out of the subconscious mind, Freud thought that they often revealed repressed desires and trauma, although in symbolic form. Psychoanalytic therapy encourages patients to describe and interpret their dreams.

Many of Hitchcock's recurring images - eyes, falling, restraint, mirrors, shadows, etc. - are important in Freudian dream interpretation. In addition, two Hitchcock movies contain dream sequences related to their heroes' emotional disturbances:

The dream sequence in Spellbound was based on designs of the surrealist artist Salvadore Dali. The images include eyes, mutilation, being chased (by giant wings), and falling - all familiar from Freudian dream interpretation.
The dream sequence in Vertigo includes images of falling and open graves.
Split personality
(see also the page on Doppelgangers and doubles)
In extreme cases, disturbed individuals can develop alternate identities. The alternate personality can act out repressed desires or wishes without the "normal" individual being aware of these actions.
In Psycho, the psychiatrist explains: "When reality came too close, when danger or desire threatened that illusion, he dressed up, even to a cheap wig he bought. He'd walk about the house, sit in her chair, speak in her voice." "He was never all Norman, but he was often only Mother."
In literature and dream analysis, mirrors are often associated with second selves or hidden aspects of the personality.

The broken mirror in The Wrong Man symbolizes the wife's descent into insanity.

Freudian theories:
- repressed memory
- repetition compulsion
- Oedipal complex & Momism
- stages of psychosexual development
- Ego, Superego, and Id
- dream analysis
- split personality

Related concepts:
- Doppelgangers, doubles, exchange of guilt
- scopophilia, the gaze, fetishism
- mothers in Hitchcock's movies
- homosexuality in Hitchcock movies