Conceptual Models and Symbol Formation During the Latency Period*

The latency period has remained the “neglected child” in psychoanalytic theory because no one model of development is sufficient to explain the multitude of changes that occur during this phase of childhood. The focus of this paper is on establishing a broad conceptual framework for thinking about development during latency, with special reference to fantasy and symbolization as central processes during the period.

The study of fantasies and stories of children has been of interest to psychological researchers since Freud first focused attention on the unconscious. Since then, investigations of children's dreams, daydreams, play, and stories have proliferated.

Singer,42 in tracing the origins of this interest in the study of fantasy and imagery, remarks that these phenomena had long been the exclusive domain of poets, philosophers and “daydreamers” and of no particular interest to the scientist. With the cultural changes brought about by the end of the Victorian era and the growth of industrial technology at the close of the nineteenth century, however, there blossomed an intense interest in the workings of the mind. Freud's early work at this time opened the way for further investigations of the structure and functions of the mental apparatus.

Freud's early use of the term “latency” to describe the child from the sixth year to preadolescence sets the tone for his later formulations on