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.
FOR SOME TIME NOW IN MY ANALYTIC WORK WITH LATE ADOLESCENTS and young adults, I have felt hampered in my ability to understand the meaning of certain clinical material. In a number of instances I found that, although the clinical material of some patients in late adolescence (ages 18 to 21) seemed similar to that of some patients who were young adults (ages 22 to 25 or so), the fact that the patient was either "an adolescent" or a "young adult" seemed fundamentally to affect the meaning of this material. This division of "adolescent" and "young adult" also has determined my diagnostic and prognostic views, as well as my day-to-day technique of work. My first inclination was to explain the difference in meaning by thinking of adolescence as a developmental phase and of young adulthood as a time when structural development is fixed and when the "character" is less amenable to change. As a sweeping definition of the differences between adolescence and young adulthood, this may be correct, but it was not very helpful to