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This special issue sets out to address theoretical and clinical questions concerning the ways in which adolescents deal with trauma and the ways trauma affects adolescent development. Many therapists who specialize in treating adolescents report feeling that they are seen as “second class citizens” in the psychoanalytic community; there is more prestige and status for a child analyst and certainly more for an adult analyst.

Indeed, examination of the literature on trauma supports these views. Although there has been a concentrated effort to explore the impact of trauma on children, adolescence as a distinct developmental stage has been largely ignored in trauma theory, leaving little information to guide the clinician in treating traumatized adolescents. Therefore, this Special Issue is written to meet that important need. Leading psychoanalytic scholars on trauma and adolescence were invited to discuss varied aspects of the topic from contemporary classical, ego psychological, self psychological, object relational and contemporary relational points of view.

In his paper, Peter Giovacchini advances theoretical knowledge and leads us to consider creative clinical interventions. This is especially valuable because youngsters who struggle to survive horrific experiences are very difficult to manage clinically. As the psychoanalytic literature debates the analyzability of adolescent patients, Giovacchini, through his clinical examples, forcefully asserts that analysis was “the only treatment that was possible” for these traumatized adolescents. Giovacchini defines adolescence as a transitional period between childhood and adulthood. The transitional function of the developmental stage of adolescence depends on the adolescent's ability to use his self to adapt to the external world and to establish gratifying relationships. However, changing cultural norms in our times make this task exceedingly difficult. Giovacchini argues that an unstable, abusive, humiliating, or negle