Editing Psychosexual development (section)

===Latency stage===
{{main article|Latency stage}}
The fourth stage of psychosexual development is the latency stage (from the age of 6 until [[puberty]]), wherein the child consolidates the character habits they developed in the three earlier stages. Whether or not the child has successfully resolved the Oedipal conflict, the instinctual drives of the child are inaccessible to the ego, because they have been subject to the mechanism of repression during the phallic stage. Hence, because the drives are latent (hidden) and gratification is indefinitely delayed, the child must derive the pleasure of gratification from secondary process-thinking that directs the energy of the drives towards external activities, such as schooling, friendships, hobbies, etc. Any neuroses established during the latent stage of psychosexual development might derive from the inadequate resolution of the Oedipus conflict, or from the ego's failure in attempts to direct the energies towards socially acceptable activities.