On Latency: Individual Development, Narcissistic Impulse Reminiscence and Cultural Ideal

Latency is a developmental period that plays a transitional role, like "a bridge", between early childhood and adolescence (the beginning of early adulthood). However, the latency period is a subject that has not been studied enough in psychoanalysis in recent years.

Most of the psychoanalytic frameworks that have built on and extended Freud's work have focussed their attention either on the understanding of the child's early development (the early dyadic and triadic relationship of the infant and the early organization of the mind), or on the understanding of adolescent development, when sexuality explodes - accompanied by all unconscious libidinal elements from the early organization which were repressed in latency. As a result, interest in the latency period has been put in the shade: left dormant as its definition would imply.

The aim of this book is to raise a number of relevant questions, which have not received much attention in psychoanalysis up to now. To this end empirical findings are related to conceptual elaboration in order to advance knowledge. The book shows convincing evidence that this kind of work can contribute to a better understanding of cultural pattern influences on the child's emotional development process in latency, in particular contributing to an elaboration of psychoanalytic concepts for this period.