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Adolescence has always been widely understood to be an ever-changing, turbulent, transitional time of life. Like all markedly transitional times of life – the newborn stage, toddlerhood, the menopause, the late stages of ageing – we are more acutely reminded at these times of the bittersweet reality of time passing, having to contemplate and deal with numerous separations from what came before. To address and frame these changing times within life, societies have traditionally created rituals to mark, manage, remember and move forward.
In the absence of such rituals and framing, in our mostly secular and individualistic contemporary societies, adolescents and their families are often left feeling they are without an anchor when wading the deep waters of a time in life that can feel bewildering, as well as exciting.
‘On adolescence: Inside stories’, by eminent psychoanalyst and child analyst Margot Waddell, helps us frame and understand some of the presenting characteristics (strengths as well as difficulties) of modern adolescents. Waddell places adolescent experience within a detailed developmental context, outlining the milestones and challenges faced by young people of this age group. In addition, by offering clear background knowledge of the internal and external psychic steps that lead to this life stage, this book can appeal not just to child psychotherapists but to anyone interested in understanding adolescence in some depth.
Waddell has a background in classics and literature. I enjoyed and appreciated how she weaves in literary ideas to illuminate some of the concepts she explores. Literature, after all, can often talk more clearly and eloquently than mental health professionals can do about human experience. There is a whole chapter named ‘fictional worlds’ here, that looks at stories from current Young Adult Fiction, highlighting what such stories tell us about the teenage years. Waddell notes that these books are:
‘ … infused with alarming and incomprehensi