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This lecture will focus on some developmental problems of adolescence, a period which, in the opinion of all analytic experts in this field, has not yet been fully explored.
In her last paper on this subject, Anna Freud (1958) discussed the reasons for our insufficient insight into the confusing emotional manifestations and symptomatology of this interesting phase. In this context, she compared the adolescent's resistances to analytic treatment with the difficulties encountered in patients during periods of mourning or during unhappy love affairs, and she emphasized how much the emotional situation of the adolescent has in common with these two states.
Berta Bornstein and Nathan Root (1957) had already called attention to the significant role of mourning in the struggle of the adolescent, who must disengage himself from his parents and embark on a search for new objects.
But why does the adolescent pass through such violent and peculiar affective crises? Why does he show such a bent for rapid, sudden swings of mood? One week he may be in a state of doleful sadness, of Weltschmerz and despair. The next week may be a period of earnest concentration and introspection. Today we may enjoy his sparkling enthusiasm, his burning interest in his studies, or his infectious joyfulness and his high-spirited sociability. But tomorrow