ANAL OR ANAL-SADISTIC PHASE: The second phase of early childhood psychosexual development, according to Freud, when pleasure is oriented to the anal orifice and defecation (roughly 2-4 years of age). This phase is split between active and passive impulses: the impulse to mastery on the one hand, which can easily become cruelty; the impulse to scopophilia (love of gazing), on the other hand. According to Freud, the child's pleasure in defecation is connected to his or her pleasure in creating something of his or her own, a pleasure that for women is later transferred to child-bearing. See Freud Module 1 on psychosexual development.