Developmental Breakdown and Psychoanalytic Treatment in Adolescence: Clinical Studies: Edited by Moses Laufer and M. Eglé Laufer. New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1989. 217 pp.

This fascinating, challenging, sometimes disturbing book addresses the psychoanalytic treatment of severely impaired adolescents. Through the presentation of nine case studies and four chapters on theoretical and clinical implications, the Laufers and their colleagues acquaint us with current data from an ongoing study and provide us with considerable food for thought.

The book is a report of a clinical study of mental breakdown in adolescence at the Centre for Research into Adolescent Breakdown/Brent Consultation Centre, prompted by the authors' view "that psychopathology has a different meaning in adolescence than it does in childhood or adulthood and that the severe disorders of this period—some of which give the impression of the presence of psychosis, confused thinking, and distortions of the body image—may be more amenable to intensive treatment than they had been thought to be" (p. 1). Firmly anchored in a psychoanalytic developmental model of the mind, the Laufers assume that each developmental phase from infancy through early adulthood fundamentally affects the subsequent periods and makes a specific contribution to the move toward normality or psychopathology.

One of the great values of this book is the vivid and comprehensive