ABSTRACT
The chapter focuses on work with the individual child. While Agathe Gretton stresses the overwhelming challenge that the developmental tasks of adolescence represent for depressed children, Jane Cassidy's main emphasis is on "working through in the countertransference", and Jackie Hall concentrates on the technical problem of phrasing interventions in a way most likely to support the child's sense of autonomy. The chapter also focuses on three main aspects of the work: some recurrent themes emerging in the course of treatment; technical adaptations made by the therapists in response to the young people's state of mind; and the impact on both therapists and supervisors of working within a research project. The main themes that emerged from the whole-project focus groups are as follows: Identity and sexual identity, Living and growing at someone else's expense, Fear of damaging the parents' marriage, Fear that aggression is unmanageable/intolerable, Fear of being murdered by a Mafia-type gang.
