PINHEIRO, G. F. M. A latência hoje: reflexões acerca da organização psíquica da sexualidade em crianças de nove anos [The latency stage today: reflections regarding the psychological organization of sexuality in nine-year-old children]. Master’s Dissertation – PUC-SP. São Paulo (SP). 2006.
Available on: https://tede.pucsp.br/bitstream/handle/15481/1/GIANNA%20FILGUEIRAS%20MOHANA%20PINHEIRO.pdf
This is a qualitative study which has as objective reflecting about the psychic organization of sexuality in nine-year-old children. For that, it was used the Drawing-and-Story Procedure (D-E), a technique for a clinical investigation of personality, introduced by Walter Trinca in 1972. Ten children at the age of nine took part of the research, among them five girls and five boys, from a private school in São Luís, Maranhão. The interpretation of clinical material, obtained through the Drawing-and-Story Procedure was accomplished from a psychoanalysis theoretical reference. By analyzing the drawings and stories from each child, we tried to investigate: a) traces of early erotization; b) the ego´s solidity to deal with the pulsional demands; c) the existence of a psychodynamic that characterizes an early adolescence; d) the usage of a repression mechanism in an appropriate intensity or characteristic of latency period. The results obtained in this research revealed traces of early erotization only in one of the children observed. On the other hand, the analysis of the Drawing-and-Story Procedure discloses that the children use the mechanism of repression to avoid the intense anguish they would live if genital sexual stimulations invaded the ego at this moment of development. The children reveal that sexuality might be lived in a destructive way since the ego in this period of life doesn’t have capacity to elaborate the abrupt appearance of genital sexual stimulations. It was possible to verify, as well, that the early erotization might cause difficulties related to capacity of learning and capacity of thinking in children which has as consequence the replacement of thought by acting out. The early erotization in nine-year-old children would implicate, on the other side, difficulties in ego´s preparation to deal with characteristic conflicts of adolescence. This study shows that each phase of development must be lived with their appropriate characteristics. It confirmed the value, already noticed in other researches, of the Drawing-and-Story Procedure, in clinical diagnosis and also as intermediation in the contact with children.