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“Developmental Conflicts” are experienced by every child to a greater or lesser degree either when certain specific environmental demands are made at the appropriate developmental phases, or when the child reaches certain developmental and maturational levels at which specific conflicts are created. Toilet training demanded at the appropriate time and in a reasonable form is an example of what is meant in the first case, while the developments observed at the time of the phallic-oedipal phase illustrate the second instance. Most frequently a combination of both factors is involved.
Occasionally, what should have been one of the usual developmental conflicts can be transformed as well into a very serious developmental interference when the demand, even if correct in timing, is made in improper or even traumatic ways, that is, when there is a gross interference with the child's rights and needs on the side of the environment.1
If we elaborate further our hypothetical example concerning toilet training, it is clear that a specific degree of maturation of the central nervous system (myelinization of the pyramidal tracts, etc.) must have occurred before voluntary sphincter control is at all feasible. Nevertheless, “training” can also be effected by circumventing conscious control by means of reflex conditioning, long before the child is ready