Page - 124 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

124 Development of thinking calls this form of thinking “hypothetical -deductive reasoning” (Piaget 1972a) – the core of formal operations. Abstract thinking Abstract thinking does not merely describe concrete objects or events but consti- tutes a derivation thereof. It is a purely mental activity, in that it is not based in direct sense experience. Mental activities exist only in ideas such as time, faith, friendship, freedom, justice or culture. Latency children in concrete operation, however: can apply logic only in things they can experience directly, concretely, whereas the capacity for formal operations includes the ability to think abstractly and apply logic to mental operations as well. . . . Adolescents become capable of engaging in discussions about politics, morality and religion in ways they could not when they were younger because with adolescence they gain the capacity to understand and use the abstract ideas involved in such discus- sions. . . . It may be useful at this point to ‘bear in mind’ that recent research on brain development suggests that the capacity for abstract thinking is based on a growth spurt in the brain in late adolescence and emerging adulthood which strengthens the connection s between the frontal cortex and the other parts of the brain. (Arnett and Hughes 2012, 86) Nevertheless, the precondition for this is that the adolescent can abstract, which the latency child cannot. In my book Latency. The Golden Period of Childhood, I described several of Piaget’s experiments in detail, which show that a latency child cannot yet abstract (Diem -Wille 2018, 113ff ). For instance, Piaget asked Paul, who had a brother named Stephan, whether he (Paul) has a brother. Paul answered yes, but when asked whether Stephan has a brother, Paul said, “No, there are only two of us in the family”. Thus, he cannot abstract from his own position, i.e., he thinks “I am here with Stephan, and since Stephan has only me as his brother and no other brother, he has no brother.” Recognizing general natural laws also requires the faculty of abstracting from the egocentric worldview of a child – the worldview demonstrated, for example, when a child believes the moon is following him no matter where he goes; when the child stands still, he believes the moon is also standing still. The latency child slowly recognizes this contradiction and that laws of nature operate outside of his existence. In games, an adolescent can also accept general rules without inventing extra rules for himself – and when he does this, he realizes that they contradict the general rules. Piaget notes many logical operations an adolescent can carry out without identi- fying concrete objects for the abstract concepts of “A” or “B”. One example is the