ABSTRACT
The author's contribution to research on adolescence, as a particular mode of mental functioning, focuses on the analytic relationship with adolescents to single out its specific characteristics. These characteristics include, for instance, the turmoil of puberty, the recourse to action in lieu of thought, the revolt against childish conservatism, which can manifest itself as transitory delusions, and a great tension towards the future. When adolescents have been able to acknowledge that they have been through the event of puberty, and find themselves facing the great psychic work required to process it, they often make use of the analyst as somebody to delegate to carry on some of that work—in a way reminiscent of their parents bringing them up during their childhood. Adolescents who feel profoundly caught between the part of the self that maintains the bond with its origin and the self that seeks separateness, individuation, and self-assertion work incessantly to manage the opposing pressures coming from both fronts.
