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The author disagrees with Anna Freud chiefly in some of her formulations about adolescence.
1He questions the idea that adolescent genital activity in its ruthlessness and jilting shows fundamental incapacity for object relations. May it not be due rather to the attempt to escape strong genital anxiety?
2He questions whether fear of instinctual strength is due to increased instinctual strength. May it not become excessive in adolescence because the gratification of some specific impulse has been denied?
3Does ego development proceed with greater ease at the end of adolescence solely because of the diminishing of instinctual drive? Its more efficient development may be directly due to the experience of adolescence. The repeated attempts at differentiating phantasy from reality should teach the ego; and probably erotic tension is less apparent in maturity because the real object is more sharply distinguished from the phantasy.
4The real fallacy in Anna Freud's point of view lies in considering strength of the ego and strength of defences against instinct as identical. There