What is "latency stage"

n. (psychoanalysis) the fourth period (from about age 5 or 6 until puberty) during which sexual interests are supposed to be sublimated into other activities [syn: latency phase, latency period]

In his model of the child's psychosexual development, Sigmund Freud describes five stages. Freud believed that the child discharges his/her libido (sexual energy) through a distinct body area that characterizes each stage.

The stages are:

• the 'oral phase' (first stage)
• the 'anal phase' (second stage)
• the 'phallic phase' (third stage)
• the 'latency phase' (fourth stage)
• the 'genital phase' (fifth stage).