ABSTRACT
The mourning process in the adult and the child has been studied extensively, but that in the adolescent has been neglected. This paradigmatic case report illustrates the many ways in which an adolescent girl mourned the loss of her father. She dealt with the loss by escaping, trying to appear overly normal, overinvesting in siblings and peers, acting hypermature, acting out, identifying with the dead parent’s ambitions, hopes, and aspirations, and searching restlessly. Mourning in adolescence is unpredictable and does not conform to any consistent clinical pattern.
