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Two analysts of adolescents from different psychoanalytic traditions each presented a clinical case vignette, followed by a discussion from a different theoretical/cultural perspective. Our aim was to show the way we work with adolescents who use words/actions to both confuse and enlighten, with a focus on the challenges to the transference/countertransference reactions. Participant discussion was encouraged.
We had the pleasure of hearing two analysts present material from work with two girls aged over 15 years. Although they are the same age, the girls present differently to the analytic work.
Each case was responded to by a discussant who presented some other ways of thinking about the material and understanding the analytic work.
The first case, 15 year-old Anna, was presented by Rachel Seidel. Anna was seen for two months in twice-weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy before beginning four-times-weekly psychoanalysis. Anna was referred by her parents for problems with anxiety, depression, and an eating disorder, symptoms which overlaid her deeper problems in forming age-appropriate relationships and detaching from her primary objects. In the first year, Anna struggled with resistance towards her growing dependence on her psychoanalyst. After this resistance was worked through, Anna worked in the transference on problems in her early relationship to her parents and, in the final year, on the importance of her relationship with her analyst, and the pain and sadness of losing her. After three years, Anna was able to move away from home and from her analyst to go off to college with a sense that she would always have her psychoanalyst inside her to call upon and to think about. They had had a meaningful impact upon each other.
The discussant, Izelinde Garcia de Barros, suggested there was a convergence present in the latent material implicit in both Anna's and her parents’ reports. Both had difficulty elaborating the symbiotic aspects and infantile bonds with their prima