The ‘wave-particle’ child: reconnecting the disconnect in the concept of latency

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to re-examine psychodynamic understanding of middle childhood towards a conceptual reformulation of this critical developmental stage. We believe such a reformulation is necessary in the light of contemporary psychoanalytic thought and developmental findings outside of the psychoanalytic field. This is intended as a preliminary stage in the direction of a recalibration of the technique and language of child analytic treatment to fit the particular psychological challenges and needs of middle childhood. Historically, middle childhood (or latency) has been regarded as a period of psychosexual dormancy and psychic rigidity. We review contemporary developmental findings and suggest a shift in emphasis in psychodynamic thinking towards the psychic growth, developmental challenges and emotional fragility that also characterise middle childhood. We propose that the psyche of the school-aged child is at once wave and particle, constantly growing and evolving and yet simultaneously stable and structured. We also emphasise the complexity of psychosocial development in middle childhood beyond the triangular, into what we term the polygonal psychic space. The familiar structured games of middle childhood – card games, ball games, board games and today’s console games – reflect this complex and paradoxical developmental picture, but the traditional child psychotherapy paradigm remains biased towards the toys and make-believe games of early childhood. Adaptation of technique and clinical theory to middle childhood is critical, particularly given the recent steep rise in referrals of school-aged children to mental health clinics across the globe, and the relatively high treatment drop-out rate commonly seen, especially in boys. We suggest the game-play typical of middle childhood offers a safe and developmentally appropriate medium of play, through which the child can express and explore their intrapsychic and interpsychic world in a psychotherapeutic setting.

KEYWORDS:

• Child psychoanalytic psychotherapy
• child development
• middle childhood
• latency
• structured games
• board games

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. An in-depth literature survey is beyond the scope of this paper, but is available elsewhere, for example Maroudas (2021), Bellinson (2002, 2013), Etchegoyen (1993), Knight (2014) and Meeks (2000).

2. The age range six–twelve refers to the average ages when children are commonly thought in child development theory to transition out of early childhood into middle childhood and thence into adolescence. Clearly, in reality, these transitions happen gradually, and the age of transition varies between individuals and even between different aspects of the child’s development. We use the six–twelve year definition here, and throughout this paper, as defining the lower and upper age boundaries of middle childhood as convenient shorthand for the more accurate, but unwieldy, definition of middle childhood as spanning from its onset between the ages of five and seven to its gradual close between the ages of eleven and thirteen.

3. Rousseau’s ideas similarly influenced the educational approaches of the Austrian-born philosopher and educationalist Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) and the Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori (1870–1952). Although differing in their approaches, they all emphasised the importance of recognising the specific and distinct educational and emotional needs and abilities of the 5/7–12/14-year-old (particularly to explore and learn independently) in the revolutionary education systems they each founded.

4. See Sarnoff (1971) and Sandler (1975).

5. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle states that until a quantum ‘particle’ interacts with another (is observed) its position and/or velocity remain uncertain and can only be predicted approximately by what can be thought of as a probability cloud. Likewise, the properties of a quantum particle can never be known fully – the more precisely its position is known the less can be known about its velocity (and vice versa). The uncertainty principle, together with the concept of the wave-particle duality of quantum ‘particles’, describe the inherent uncertainty of the quantum world (and indeed today are thought by some to be equivalent statements mathematically) (Coles et al., 2014).

6. Such are the winds of change that the 2019 IPA centenary conference was devoted entirely to ‘The feminine’, with the aim of ‘updating rethinking classical psychoanalytic views on the feminine [and by corollary the masculine also] and their repercussions in psychoanalysis’, and addressing such questions as how ‘the feminine develop[s] in childhood and adolescence, and how … we deconstruct the infantile theories about the feminine at work in our psyches’ (Bürgin et al., 2019, p. 5, p. 7, respectively).

7. The terms primary dyad and external other are used here as gender neutral terms to replace the terms maternal and paternal more commonly used in the literature.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Celine Maroudas

Celine Maroudas, PhD, is a supervising child and adult clinical psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist who trained and worked for many years in the Haifa Child Adolescent and Family Mental Health Clinic. She works today mainly in private practice in the Haifa area and teaches in various post-graduate psychoanalytic psychotherapy courses around the country, including at Haifa University and in the Israel Winnicott Centre.

Hadas Wiseman

Hadas Wiseman, PhD, is a Professor in Counseling and Human Development, University of Haifa, Israel. Her research focuses on the psychotherapy process, the therapeutic relationship, attachment in psychotherapy, and intergenerational trauma in families of Holocaust survivors. She co-authored ‘Echoes of the trauma: relational themes and emotions in children of Holocaust survivors’ (with Jacques P. Barber); co-edited ‘Developing the therapeutic relationship: integrating case studies, research, and practice’ (with Orya Tishby); ‘The responsive therapist: attuning to clients in the moment’ (with Jeanne Watson); and ‘The core conflictual relationship theme method’ (with Orya Tishby), APA teletherapy video series.

She is a certified clinical psychologist in private practice. She served as international president of the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR).

Judith Harel

Judith Harel, PhD, is professor emerita in the Department of Psychology in the faculty of Social Sciences, University of Haifa. Professor Harel is a certified clinical and developmental psychologist and supervisor and senior consulting child and adult psychotherapist, and works as psychotherapist and supervisor in private practice in Haifa. She teaches and supervises in the Haifa University post-graduate school of psychotherapy and in the school for child-parent psychotherapy in Tel Aviv. Professor Harel co-founded the Haifa dyadic therapy system and teaches and supervises professional staff working with pre-schoolers and their parents. She is co-author with Miriam Ben-Aaron, Hayuta Kaplan, Raya Avieir-Patt of the book ‘Mother-child and father-child psychotherapy: a manual for the treatment of relational disturbances in childhood’.