ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the issues involved in the psychoanalytic/psychotherapeutic approach to adolescents. It presents some of the key theoretical conceptualizations of the adolescent phase of development and considers technical problems of working with these patients. The chapter also considers more dramatic clinical pictures, for example, psychosis or self-destructive behaviour. It emphasizes the importance of assessing each parent's view of the patient in view of the adolescent's actual dependence on his parents. A frequent argument in work with adolescents refers to the type of interventions that the therapist/analyst is supposed to make. There are analysts who argue for strict transference interpretations, but these tend to be the analysts who make the same prescription for the analyses of children and of adults. Other analysts are prepared to accept that work with children involves other interventions than only transference interpretations. A perfectly correct transference interpretation can, sometimes, be experienced as a complaint or a seductive move.
