Meeting of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

May 11, 1971. Panel on LATE ADOLESCENCE: PSYCHOANALYTIC CONSIDERATIONS. A Tribute to the Work and Influence of Dr. Elisabeth Geleerd. Chairman: Peter Blos, Sr., Ph.D.

Dr. Blos noted that Geleerd's work, much of which has become an integral part of psychoanalysis, was firmly rooted in clinical observation. Late adolescence, the subject of the meeting, can be seen from the perspective of work with both adults and children. In late adolescence, the gradual consolidation of the personality takes place, and the adult neurosis is organized and structured wherever an insoluble infantile precondition is found. This thesis is illustrated by material from analytic work with late adolescents.

Dr. Charles Feigelson, in An Identity Conflict and Drugs, presented the case of an adolescent who began his analysis at age eighteen. During the early part of his treatment, he spoke of his involvement with his stepmother whom the father had married shortly after the patient's mother had abandoned the family. The stepmother had two children of her own; the patient assumed a passive, masochistic, ingratiating stance with her. The transference attitude then changed and was concerned with his relationship to his father and difficulties in forming a masculine identity—problems of career choice, forming a relationship with a girl, and dealing with the father. Smoking marijuana served as a passive pregenital and homosexual gratification, as a suppressor of guilt over sexual impulses, and as a self-destructive gratification of anger. It became clear that when he was faced with issues of career choice and heterosexuality, the pressure to resolve the negative Oedipal identification increased. In middle adolescence, while going back and forth from negative to positive Oedipal identifications, he had defenses, especially track running, that enabled him to cope. Without the sublimation of track running, without peer relationships, and with the increased pressure to assume a 'masculine' i