ABSTRACT
Adolescent psychiatry is essentially a clinical discipline. Most of what we know, or think we know, about adolescent development and psychopathology (not to mention the treatment of adolescent disorders) derives from the clinical practice of our sages, mentors, and ourselves. True, in recent years much has been learned from empirical studies, mostly in the realm of epidemiology and social science, but the bulk of our theory building and our technical methods is the fruit of a century of clinical experience beginning with Freud's epochal, if abortive study of Dora almost 100 years ago (Freud, 1905).
