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Books on psychoanalytic work with adolescents are rare so this book deserves attention for this reason before even thinking about its contents. It is also important because it is a book in the Kleinian tradition about adolescence, and furthermore because it describes the work of the adolescent department of the Tavistock Clinic, one of the main centres of psychoanalytic work with adolescents in the UK.
There are three main sections. One examines in depth three works of art, Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado about Nothing by Shakespeare, and Eugene Onegin by Pushkin.. The second deals with psychoanalytic theory in relation to adolescence, while the third gives extensive case illustrations of work with young people and in some cases with their families too.
The first is the most purely pleasurable one. The personal interpretations of the plays offer new and refreshing insights, which one might not always agree with but which are always stimulating. Perhaps the basic message the author has for us about Romeo and Juliet is that the conflict-ridden state of Verona, and the warring adolescent gangs that destroy the peace of the city with their lawlessness, illustrate the splitting and projection involved in the paranoid/schizoid position. Romeo and Juliet's tragedy is that they seek but fail to move on into the depressive position.
In Much Ado, Copley suggests, that unlike Verona, Messina and the adolescent group that Beatrice and Benedict belong to offer a container for the paranoid/schizoid position that Beatrice and Benedict are in at the beginning of the play. They defensively reject love and especially love for each other. With the help of the group