Latency stage

In his model of the child's psychosexual development, Sigmund Freud describes five stages. Freud believed that the child discharges his/her libido (sexual energy) through a distinct body area that characterizes each stage.

The stages are:

Because the latency stage is less of a stage and more of period between stages, it may begin at any time between the ages of 3 and 7 (whenever the child goes to school) and may continue until puberty, anywhere from the ages of 8 to 15. The age range is affected by childrearing practices; mothers in First World countries, during the time when Freud was forming his theories, were more likely to stay at home with young children, and adolescents began puberty on average later than adolescents today.

Freud described the latency phase as one of relative stability. No new organization of sexuality develops, and he did not pay a lot of attention to it. For this reason, this phase is not always mentioned in descriptions of his theory as one of the phases, but as a separate period.

The latency phase originates during the phallic stage when the child's Oedipus complex begins to dissolve. The child realizes that his/her wishes and longings for the parent of the opposite sex cannot be fulfilled and will turn away from these desires.

He/she starts to identify with the parent of the same sex. The libido is transferred from parents to friends of the same sex, clubs and hero/role-model figures. The sexual and aggressive drives are expressed in socially accepted forms through the defense mechanisms of repression and sublimation.

During the latency phase, the energy the child previously put into the Oedipal problem can be used for developing the self. The superego is already present, but becomes more organized and principled. The child acquires culturally regarded skills and values. The child has evolved from a baby with primitive drives to a reasonable human being with complex feelings like shame, guilt and disgust. During this stage, the child learns to adapt to reality and also begins the process of what Freud terms ‘infantile amnesia’: the repression of the child's earliest traumatic, overly sexual or evil memories.

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