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In this brief paper I have tried to outline some of the knowledge gained by recent analytic experience with children carried into puberty and adolescents carried into adult life. This work was conducted within the framework of theory and technique which is an extension of the developments in psychoanalysis associated with the name of Melanie Klein. It draws very heavily on her delineation of the pregenital Oedipus conflicts, 1 the role of splitting processes in development, 2 and the phenomenology of projective identification as a dynamic mechanism. 2, 3 It may not be readily comprehended without a general understanding of her work. The most lucid description of this will be found in Hanna Segal's book. 6
The thesis has been exemplified, that the return of severe splitting processes, characteristic of infancy and early childhood, which attends the adolescent flux, requires externalization in group life so that the omnipotence and confusional states precipitated by the return