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The frequency of symptomatic changes manifested by many adolescent patients suggests that no one technique can fulfil the requirements for their treatment. In his therapeutic dealings with the adolescent, the analyst has the following techniques at his disposal. With the classical technique, he can undo the damage of inhibition, or neurotic symptoms evoked by a too restricting reality; by the technique used with delinquents he is able to close the gaps in the patient's superego and curb his antisocial impulses; with the technique evolved for the acute phase of schizophrenia he is able to reconcile the adolescent with his total environment when he is endangered by withdrawal and surrender to the id with a minimum of defence. By instigating a conflict between the ego and perverted impulses, the analyst seeks to safeguard in the unconscious the cathexis of adequate heterosexual objects and of the genital function.
The ultimate and most difficult task is to synthesize these techniques. Except where the disturbance can be contained within one diagnostic category, the technique of treatment has to be correlated with the respective phase in which the patient's symptomatology moves. The widespread pessimism regarding the success of analysis in this period may stem from the rigid adherence to one technique throughout treatment.
The author discusses some dynamic factors in the phase which elucidate in part the evident 'liquidity' of personality and gives some reasons why analysis presents difficulty at this time. In discussing the part played by masturbation in the life of the adolescent, he offers certain formulations on the psychology of orgasm and the nature of perversion, where the selectivity of conditions for orgasm is so conspicuous. The conscious part of the ego is forced to perceive and, if possible, to acknowledge as true certain conditions which disprove what is represented as true in the unconscious. The ego is then, depending on quantitative factors, endang