ABSTRACT
In considering the development of the child's sexuality, emphasis is placed on his move through the various phases of childhood sexuality. It is worth noting that such phases, while they may be appropriate for considering sexual development, are not the best way of looking at ego and superego development, nor at the development of relationships with others—matters dealt with later in the lectures. Any prohibition given to the child during the time of infantile sexuality can remain as an inhibition or develop into an inhibition, and can hold up adult sexuality; this does not mean that freedom given to infantile sexuality guarantees normality in the adult—far from it. There was no way of understanding from the theory of sex life, as it existed then, where all the many abnormalities of sex life come from. Even in those times, children before the age of adolescence or preadolescence were known to show sexual reactions and to have genital interests.
