Latency Revisited—The Age 7 Plus or Minus 1

SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION GENERALLY PROCEEDS WITHIN DISCIplinary lines. Chemists do chemistry and biologists do biology. However, there is also an interpenetration of individual scientific approaches when data derived from one method seem relevant to the theories and constructs of another. Psychoanalysis is not exempt from this interpentration or the revisions in theory made necessary by advances in other sciences. Indeed, awareness of such changes is sometimes salutary in that they elaborate or better define ideas derived from the psychoanalytic method alone. While Freud (1950), (1919) sought to keep analysis methodologically free of encroachment by other therapeutic modalities, he frequently borrowed from data of biologists of his time and often modified his theory to bring it into relation with current clinical practice and data from other sciences. Among Freud's more controversial concepts was the idea of a biological basis for the latency period, an idea which was both supported and criticized during his lifetime and since his death. He