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These are two books that appear to be in the same genre: personal stories of adolescent and young adult psychopathology and treatment. They are, however, quite different in terms of what and how they portray those stories, and their utility for psychoanalysts.
Samantha Leach, in The Elissas, writes a thoughtful, journalistic book about the Troubled Teen Industry as it was present in her life as a teenager, through personal experience and—even more significantly—how it figured in the lives of three friends who were severely damaged through their participation in these adolescent mental health treatment programs. Alice Carriere, in Everything, Nothing, Someone writes a compelling, exquisitely detailed account of her own deeply troubled yet rich upbringing, that resulted in profound disturbance during her adolescent and young adult years.
In terms of what each portrays about development, the extreme importance of the adolescent peer group is clear in both instances. Leach describes well the enormous influence ones’ friends and love objects have during adolescence; how they can be defining, become reflections of one’s sense of Self. There is a virtual contagion of experience in her description of teenage friendship and romance. Friends and partners drink, cut themselves, use all varieties of drugs, and have (often risky) sexual exploits. They are highly influenced by each other:
in the distancing from parents that often defines adolescent Self development, they look to one another for guidance. It’s a kind of mob or horde mentality that arises in the context of a weakened sense of core Self. If the chosen company is of the danger-seeking variety, kids can be pressed to stretch the limits of self-preservation. This happens to the extreme in the stories Leach tells.
In Leach’s description, being sent to the wilderness programs and in-patient or residential school facilities that the more well-to-do seek out for assistance when their adolescents seem out of control can be