You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This communication concerns a girl who became ill with an anxiety hysteria and masochistic depressive character neurosis, which was triggered by her marriage at the age of seventeen years. The data from this case are presented because they may be of interest and because few detailed accounts of analytic case material from the period of adolescence have been reported (whether obtained directly in work with adolescent patients or indirectly from work with adults).
Freud (1932) wrote: "Pathology, as you know, has always assisted us, by isolation and exaggeration, in making recognizable things which would normally remain hidden." In the present instance, the unfortunate fact of her mother's death caused this patient to experience an adolescence that is not typical. But the loss of her mother caused the analytic process to light up most sharply the need for this patient to do the work of mourning, a need which she unconsciously kept trying to deny. It then became an easy step from this case to picture the maturational progress during adolescence, which is one of detachment from infantile libidinal positions, as proceeding alongside the path of a mourning process.
The patient began to suffer from neurotic symptoms when she was seventeen, and had been married one month to a fellow student at college. She started analysis nearly two years later, at nineteen. By this time, she was suffering keenly. She complained mainly of recurring feelings of "sickness" and nausea. She also had constant feelings of fatigue, depression, and general anxiety. In addition, she exhibited marked inhibition, indecision, and a sense of inadequacy. Indeed, she exhibited her suffering. She underscored her shortcomings, obviously and in many subtle ways. Her demeanor was timid,