ABSTRACT
Latency is usually thought of as a time of lessened drive activity and expanding ego and superego development. Most of the early papers discussed in this chapter are clinical, theoretical, and technical papers about latency, whose themes include cognitive development, defense formation, family romance, and the relation of pregenital psychosexuality and oedipal trauma to psychopathology and neurosis. Berta Bornstein's The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child conceptualizes important developmental aspects of latency, although she does not specifically discuss female development. In early latency, between five and eight years of age, the child must deal with both pregenital and genital impulses. Bornstein agrees with and reiterates Freud’s view on female masturbation during the pregenital and phallic psychosexual stages of development. On the basis of her extensive analytic experience with latency-age children, Bornstein describes masturbation in latency-age boys and girls.
