Discussion of “From Attachment to Affiliation”

I would like to thank the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis for the opportunity to discuss Dr. Bemporad's very interesting paper, in which he calls our attention to one of the most unexamined aspects of the most underexamined phase of childhood development-latency. That we are now seeing more psychoanalytic interest in this phase probably reflects the impact on psychoanalysis of the women's movement: old assumptions about male and female development have been assaulted by new curiosities about developmental differences, whether constitutional or culturally imposed, between girls and boys. Such curiosity is reflected by Dr. Bemporad in his allusions to the work of Gilligan.

Following the formidable tasks of negotiating the attachment-separation process and of Oedipal resolution, a child has 6 to 7 years until adolescence. During this time, the child confronts many tasks and demands, not only new ones, but also earlier ones in attenuated and less overt elaborations. Certainly we do not equate adequate separation and adequate Oedipal resolution with closure on these issues. One of the most important tasks of latency, therefore, is consolidation of the multiple, sequential, but overlapping developmental accomplishments of earlier childood. The density of the developmental demands placed on the child from birth through the Oedipal phase is surely greater than the density of demands in any later phase of the normative life cycle. Thus, optimally, the latency years provide the opportunity for, among other things, a continuing adaptive integration and consolidation of the preceding achievements.

Cognitive growth, with its associated sublimation of sexual drives, is a second major task of latency. It is among the more amply elucidated aspects of development in this phase. So, too, is the acquisition of competitive skills. Erikson's stage of industry versus inferiority might be viewed not