ABSTRACT
Therapists working with adolescents, especially traumatized ones, are faced with intense resistances that have significant and multiple functions, including an attempt to preserve selfhood. Understanding and acknowledging this and other dynamics may prepare us for the adolescents' intense resistance, especially during the beginning phase, when they are questioning our sincerity and commitment to caring for them. The girls in the group struggled with coming to therapy at traumatic moments in their lives when their parents' health was deteriorating and losing them became a real threat. To be in touch with their parents' pain and anger was a traumatizing experience. Their resistance to facing fearful reality can be seen as a dissociated aspect of their selves that had to be negotiated with me (Bromberg, 1998).
