Freud Latency Stage

Sigmund Freud was one of the most famous psychologists of the history of psychological study. His ideas on adolescent development shaped the future psychology. You may need to do a research paper on Freud or his 5 stages of psychosexual development. Paper Masters can help you by writing a custom research paper example on any stage of Freud's developmental model, including the latency stage.

The latency stage is the fourth phase of Sigmund Freud's (1856-1939) 5-stage framework of childhood and adolescent psychosexual development. The latency stage is characterized by the following:

1. Begins sometime between the ages of 5 and 7 and endures until puberty.
2. Freud described the latency stage as a relatively stable period during which the child has resolved or repressed the psychological and sexual challenges of the earlier phases
3. It occurs before the onrush of the new challenges that begin with puberty.
4. Sexual urges and aggressive impulses are suppressed and channeled into more socially accepted pursuits.

However, although the idea of a latency stage reinforces popular notions of "childhood innocence," there is limited evidence that most developing children experience a distinct and extended period when psychosexual impulses and development are suspended.

The research (albeit limited) that has been done on the subject indicates that this period of life is no less important to psychosexual development than are other stages of life. Perhaps Freud's brazen heterosexism led him to presume that, since children at this stage tend to interact with peers mainly of the same sex (itself a questionable supposition), then their sexual interests and urges must be dormant. Researchers have found that many of the very impulses that are supposedly repressed are frequently manifest. Some psychologists suggest that, rather than being regarded as a set phase in childhood development, latency should be viewed as a mindset or way of being-an undefined period during which the individual suspends other concerns in order to focus on learning.

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