ABSTRACT
This essay began as a more or less conventional handbook chapter, in both tone and format. In tone it was to be evenhanded; in format, expository; and to some degree these earlier intentions persist. But as we searched the recent literature, we found ourselves increasingly troubled at what seems to us to be a continuing failure to realize the potentials of the psychodynamic approach. In an oft-quoted statement made about two decades ago, Anna Freud (1958) termed the study of adolescence a "stepchild" in psychoanalytic theory. She meant that the period had not received the full attention of psychoanalytic writers, that it was victimized by neglect.
