The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child

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On Latency

Berta Bornstein

To cite this article: Berta Bornstein (1951) On Latency, The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 6:1,
279-285, DOI: 10.1080/00797308.1952.11822916

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00797308.1952.11822916

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ON LATENCyl
By BERTA BORNSTEIN (New York)

From the standpoint of the intellectual ability of the child in

latency, we could expect the child to associate freely. The factors re-
sponsible for the child's failure to do so create a general limitation of
child analysis. There are several reasons for his inability to associate. In
addition to those well known to us, I will mention only one which has
not been: stressed yet: Free association is experienced by the child as a
particular threat to his ego organization.
The use of free association is actually a regression to the primary
process. In early latency the child is still close to the period when his
mind was mainly dominated by the pleasure-principle and conscious
and unconscious contents were not yet strictly separated. It is only with
great difficulty that the child learns that contradictions exclude each
other and that contradictory thoughts must be kept apart in conversa-
tion.
For the sake of adults, the child behaves as though he were living
by the rules of the secondary process. However, listening to children
five to eight years old, when they are engaged in conversations with
each other, convinces us that conscious production does not necessarily
mean constant utilization of the secondary process. Their conscious
. thought processes (on the surface similar to ours) can during the latency
period still easily dip into the primary process. Any newly acquired ac-
complishment can easily be undone by regressive processes and the
child senses that this would occur were he to attempt to express what-
ever comes into his mind. Therefore the child must fight against free
association more than the adult. A particularly strong anticathexis is
needed to safeguard the hardly achieved intactness of ego functioning.
Free association is possible only after children have gradually developed
the capacity for introspection. This hardly ever occurs before pre-
puberty when the superego approaches a state of consolidation.

Before we speak about latency and the technique applied during

that period, let me review briefly the main factors which precede latency.
1. Paper read at the Panel on Child Analysis. held at the Annual Meeting of the
American psychoanalytic Association in Cincinnati on May 5, 1951.
279
280 BERTA BORNSTEIN
The ego as a mediator between the inner and outer world adopts at an
early point defensive measures against painful stimuli from within
and without. Under the influence of reality, the ego is enabled gradually
to tolerate greater amounts of tension. The open pursuit of the child's
gratifications is hindered by the parents' opposition. The growing
functions of intellect and judgment assist the child further to postpone
gratifications and to block impulses from direct discharge. A partial
resolution of the oedipus complex leads, via the identification with the
objects of the oedipus complex, to the establishment of the superego.
From now on the ego has to observe not only the demands of instinctual
drives and of the outside world, but also the demands coming from the
superego. This means that certain demands which originally were only
complied with under the pressure of the parents or their substitutes, are
now complied with even if there is no threat of external danger.
With the resolution of the oedipus complex and with the estab-
lishment of the superego, the latency period is introduced. Although it
is common practice to refer to the latency period as if it were uniform,
at least two major divisions within it can be discerned; the first from
five and one half to eight years, and the second from eight until about
ten years. There are, of course, more than chronological differences be-
tween them. The element common to both is the strictness of the super-
ego in its evaluation of incestuous wishes-a strictness which finds ex-
pression in the child's struggle against masturbation.
Let me now describe the characteristics of the first period of latency.
The ego, still buffeted by the surging impulses, is threatened by the new
superego which is not only harsh and rigid but still a foreign body.
This first phase of latency is complicated because of the intermingling
of two different sets of defenses: the defense against genital and the de-
fense against pregenital impulses. As a defense against genital impulses
a temporary regression to pregenitality is adopted by the ego. First these
pregenital drives appear as less dangerous than the genital ones. Still
they are threatening enough for the child to have to evolve new de-
fenses against the pregenital impulses. Reaction formations, developed
as defense against the pregenital impulses, mark the first character
changes in early latency.
The result of the conflicts between the superego and the drives can
be observed in a heightened ambivalence. This increased ambivalence
is a regular feature of early latency, even if the child is not in the
process of developing an obsessive neurosis. The ambivalence is ex-
pressed in the child's behavior by an alternation between obedience and
rebellion: and rebellion is usually followed by self-reproach. However,
ON LATENCY 281
at this time of life, the child can tolerate his own feelings of guilt as
little as he can tolerate criticism from the outside, nor is his behavior
modified right away by either. Anna Freud has described what happens at
"this intermediate stage of superego development": The attempt to
internalize the criticism from the outside sometimes does not lead
further than to an identification with the aggressor, "often supple-
mented by another defensive measure, namely the projection of guilt."
Both defenses in turn thrust the child into greater inner and outer
conflicts.
It appears to me that the statement frequently made that infantile
neurosis decreases during latency requires some modification. It is cor-
rect as far as the second period is concerned, but it does not correspond
to my own experience as far as the first period is concerned. When the
ego is faced by conflicts it cannot overcome during the first period
behavior difficulties arise and neurotic symptoms manifest themselves
in new ways. To give a few examples: Early animal phobias are re-
placed by a new wave of separation anxiety and open castration fear is
substituted by fear of death. The symptom of insomnia occurs more
frequently during that period than is generally known.
Some children in early latency give the appearance of being in an
emergency situation; they are conscious of their emotional distress and
under such conditions they are ready to accept the analyst as a potential
helper. Though they usually expect instantaneous relief and become
disappointed and distrustful if this does not occur, they can be very
co-operative during treatment. Due to the facts that the child is aware
of his suffering, that the ego is in rebellion against both id and super-
ego, that the libido is still in a fluid state and the superego still open to
modification, and thus that the ego is not yet completely crippled by
neurotic defenses, therapeutic chances seem to be better in early
latency than at any other time.
In the second period of latency the situation is different: The ego
is exposed to less severe conflicts by virtue of the facts that, on the one
hand, the sexual demands have become less exerting and, on the other,
the superego has become less rigid. The ego now can devote itself to a
greater extent to coping with reality. The average eight-year-old is
ready to be influenced by the children around him and by adults other
than his parents. As he is able to compare them with other adults, his
belief in the omnipotence of his parents subsides. Coinciding with a
partial degradation of parents, there is a parallel change in the attitude
of the ego toward the superego.
Even if this period is not quite as smooth as described, even if
282 BEllT A BORNSTEIN
children manifest character disturbances, ego restrictions or slight ob-
sessive symptoms, these symptoms are ego-syntonic.
During the second period, the temptation to masturbate is not
completely overcome but the child is so sincerely opposed to the temp-
tation as well as to the occasional break-throughs, that he must deny
or repress both. His concern to forego the masturbatory temptations is
accompanied by the desire that defenses should not be upset by any
interference. Since he is further along in the process of consolidation
of ego defenses than the younger latency child, and is more oriented to
coping with problems of the outside world, and since he has more
gratifications in reality, the older latency child is less aware of his suf-
fering.
He fears nothing more than the upsetting of his precarious equilib-
rium. The fear of upsetting this equilibrium becomes the decisive force
in his resistance toward analysis. The child's distrust of the enmity
toward the analyst is thus often a displacement of his enmity and dis-
trust of his instinctual impulses.
We repeat: during both periods of latency, neurotic children see
as a principle task the warding off of incestuous fantasies and mastur-
batory temptations. They accomplish this task by means of partial
regression. The ego during this period is engaged in deflecting the
sexual energy from its pregenital aims and is utilizing it for sublima-
tion and reaction formation. But in neither periods do they fully suc-
ceed and a close-up of this period shows the ego in a ceaseless, though
quickly repressed, battle against the temptation to masturbate. It ap-
pears to us that adult patients give a distorted picture of their latency.
They are inclined to remember this period as one in which they had
in reality attained what Freudt described as the ideal of latency: the suc-
cessful warding off of instinctual demands. The impression retained
of latency period is understandable when one takes into account with
what amazing rapidity (even in analysis) children repress or deny the
occasional breakthroughs of their masturbatory activities. The child's
behavior during the latency period might be described as one of per-
sistent denial of the struggle against the breakthrough of instinctual
impulses, a denial which extends into adulthood as a partial amnesia
for this period. This may be one of the reasons why one learns relatively
little about latency from the analysis of adults.s
The form of analytic technique with latency children must be in
2. "Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex," in The Basic Writings of Sig.
mund Freud, Modern Library. New YO!"k, 1938.
3. We find exceptions in those adults whose latency was disturbed by a severe
obsessive neurosis.
ON LATENCY 285
accordance with the specific characteristics of the psychic structure we
have just described. Because the child battles against his impulses and
needs to keep up his defenses, we must be particularly careful to respect
his resistance, and to work through his defenses before we approach the
material which is warded off. We know how difficult it is for a child in
latency to tell us anything about his inner life.
We have learned to utilize substitutes for free associations, such as
play, drawings and stories, which enable us to draw conclusions about
id contents, but unlike the adult's free association, these substitute
media do not, to the same extent, furnish material on defenses or their
genesis. Whatever these media represent, we do not use them for the
interpretation of id contents, but as a source of knowledge of the child,
and as a stepping stone toward the analysis of defense and of affects.
Since free association is not applicable in latency, defense analysis
is more complicated in the analysis of children than in that of an adult.
We are forced to search for defenses by microscopic observation of the
total behavior of the child.

So far my remarks were theoretical. Let me now turn to an example, Il-

lustrating the technique of defense analysis as it was employed in the handling
of a daydream a ten-year-old boy told during his treatment. The patient's char-
acter disturbance found expression in his complicated relationship with his
father and his brothers with whom he competed and toward whom he harbored
strong passive desires. Like most children he was apt to forget painful experi-
ences in reality.
His daydreams were important for us not only because they represented a
superstructure of a masturbatory fantasy. but because their appearance in the
analytic situation signaled a current humiliating experience and permitted the
reconstruction of his reaction to such experiences.
After a period of analysis in which we had worked on his desire to com-
pete with his father and his older brothers which at times had not led further
than to an identification with their gestures. he made a conscious effort to com-
bat his display of competition. At the beginning of his analysis, he openly played
at being important men like generals and admirals; now, in his daydreams, he
revealed a modification of these wishes. Motivated by the desire to please the
analyst, he made a strong point of telling me that in his daydream he himself
was a ten-year-old boy and that in reality he no longer sought to compete with
his father but wanted to remain a boy of his own age.
In his daydreams, however, young as he was, he was a famous brain surgeon,
and had also discovered a cure for cancer. He attended school during the day,
of course, but nevertheless General Eisenhower had heard that our patient was
a famous brain surgeon and ordered the boy night after night to the battle
field to perform his famous operations on outstanding generals. The brains of
those generals were shattered by bullets or their lives were endangered by brain
284 BERTA BORNSTEIN
tumors. It was through his restoring the generals' mental capacity that the
United States won the war.
Up to this point his daydream emphasized that nobody at school knew
about his fame as a brain surgeon. One day a variation of the daydream oc-
curred. A policeman entered the class room and asked about a car that was not
parked correctly. It turned out to be our patient's car; in this way everyone at
school suddenly learned that he not only had, as he said, a "doctor's certificate,"
but in recognition of his outstanding services, he had also been granted a
driver's license. Our knowledge of his tendencies to react to slight narcissistic
injuries with ideas of greatness made us inquire about a defeat at school. We
asked whether anything had happened at school, whether anyone had offended
him, etc. He told us,' though not immediately, that a man teacher had com-
mented on his continuous yawning during class and that it was at this moment
that his exhibitionism broke through in his daydream.

As we said before, our interest in a daydream is not aimed at im-

mediately reaching the masturbatory fantasy which it elaborates. What
we take out of it, is a knowledge of the typical defenses and the reac-
tion to affects. Although this would be true of almost any production
of the child, I have selected the daydream precisely because it is so close
to the unconscious; yet it should be used to deal with defense and affect
rather than with the instinctual impulses. Since defense and affect are
closer to the ego than the impulse, we are able, through them, to make
interpretations which the child can recognize and accept without undue
resistance. Once a defense appears, we can assume that it is typical for
particular situations, and that the identical affect or impulse is present
whenever the defense reappears. This being so, whenever a defense is
noticed, one can bring to the child's attention the event and the affect to
which he had reacted. What has been said about defenses applies in a
general way to affects. Wherever we observe an inappropriate expression
of affect, we can assume that the ego has intervened. As Anna Freud'
said: from the transformations which the affect has undergone, we can
deduce the specific defenses used against them and we can also assume
that the same defenses are used against the instinctual impulses which
originally gave rise to these affects.
Let us return to the daydream and scrutinize it from the standpoint
of defense and affect. Our young daydreamer, we have seen, reacted to
a painful reality situation by denial in fantasy. He was not the little boy
whom a teacher could scold, but an important surgeon who wielded the
power of life and death over the commanders of many men.
Another element in his reaction to the reprimand was a feeling of
shame. The shame could not be consciously admitted, because of its
•. The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense. Int. Univ. Press, New York, 1946.
ON LATENCY 285
associative connection with his passivity. In his daydream, he reverses
the shame into glory. The shame was secret, the glory was public. When-
ever our patient used the mechanism of reversal, we were sure that be-
hind it was an instinctual impulse which clamored for discharge, and
against which the boy rebelled. For instance, the daydream in which
our patient performs nocturnal brain surgery on generals becomes mean-
ingful if understood as representing its opposite. You will not be sur-
prised to hear that the daydream took form in a period in which the
boy fought against his identification with women. His surgical activity,
and his removal of foreign bodies from the head, was the opposite of his
unconscious wish to be a woman who gives birth to a child,s
There were other affects involved which had to be examined. In a
school situation, in which a teacher reprimanded a pupil, we would
expect the child to experience some anger. This the child did not. No
anger had appeared. It was obvious that he consciously could not toler-
ate any aggression against men. In order to prevent the impulse from
appearing, the appropriate affect had to be repressed. Asked about how
he had really felt, the child answered good-humoredly: "I really was
'not angry, I had fun with my daydream. I would really like to become
a brain surgeon."
Some time after the boy spoke scornfully about his daydream:
"Gee, I'm really a fool, here I am talking about curing the generals
from brain tumors, and 1 don't even know anything about the brain,
how the nerves are working and the blood cells, and what makes the
heart beat, and what makes a man's muscles hard as bones."
His thirst for knowledge, the desire to learn about physiology and
anatomy, remained untouched by our analytic interpretation, although
they were rooted in the same conflicts that showed up in the daydream.
In concluding I should like to emphasize that I have discussed pri-
marily the neurotic child and his latency. All children in latency, how-
ever, not only the neurotic ones, use their free energies for character
development. Therefore it is particularly important during latency not
to interfere with healthy character formation. The utmost care has to
be exercised in the analysis of latency to strengthen weak structures and
to modify those which interfere with normal development. The selec-
tion of material for interpretation and the form of interpretation itself
must be geared to these ends.
5. This unconscious wish was interpreted in other connections.