Late Teenage Years

The problems which the individual has to deal with in adolescence are qualitatively different from those of childhood; they are related in particular to the adolescent's reaction/responses to the physical development of his/her sexual body, and the changing relationship to the parents and to the world in which he/she lives. We have to take into account the revival of infantile conflicts and the newly emerging sexual and aggressive urges and experiences, both of which have to be integrated by the adolescent so that a new equilibrium can be created. The adolescent finds himself in the very difficult position of having to make all these readjustments whilst he has to deal with the subsequent conflicts and anxieties. The earlier passionate mixture of love and hatred that characterizes the attachment and dependency on the parents must now be renounced until the adolescent reaches a point at which it is possible for him to confirm his own identity and find new love relationships. These must neither be based too much on repetition of previous early attachments, nor be entirely and exaggeratedly opposed to them. It goes without saying that none of this can be achieved without much upheaval and experimenting. The step from adolescence to adulthood is complex and involves not only the individual's emotional experience, but also the continuous input, reactions from the world in which he/she lives. It is these interactions that are described and discussed in this book.

Dr Luis Rodriguez de la Sierra is a Training and Supervisor Adult and Child and Adolescent Psychoanalyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society. He qualified as a psychiatrist in Barcelona and London, where he also trained as a Group psychotherapist. He worked for many years in the NHS and at the Anna Freud Centre and currently works at the London Clinic of Psychoanalysis and in private practice. He has published papers on child analysis and drug addiction, and has also edited 'Child Analysis Today'. Dr Joan Schachter is a Training and Supervising Analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society. She trained in medicine and psychiatry before specialising in psychotherapy in the NHS, first in the Cassel Hospital and subsequently at Parkside Clinic where she worked as a consultant psychotherapist for twenty-four years. She also worked at the Brent Adolescent Centre for three years and was part of a research project investigating breakdown in young adults at the Anna Freud Centre. She now works in private psychoanalytic practice with adults, and is actively involved in teaching and training. She has published in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and contributed chapters to two books on 'A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Violence and Suicide' and 'Female Experience: Four Generations of British Women Psychoanalysts on Work with Women'.