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This book describes the specific work with adolescents that Senise has been doing for many years now, both at the clinical and the theoretical level, and in the private and the public sectors. For many reasons, it deserves more careful attention than the many publications about adolescence and the therapeutic problems related to it which have appeared in the last few years. Its distinctiveness, as the title suggests, lies in the fact that, in Senise's hands, the setting of the adolescent's psycho-diagnostic referral becomes a therapeutic occasion, often sufficient to restore a spontaneous course of development which seemed blocked; its charm lies in the way Senise, by talking to adolescents as well as he does, enables us to understand them too, as professionals and parents, and guides us through an exploration of the habits and customs of this still little-known tribe, and one so often misunderstood. Clearly, the most moving chapters are the ones containing the transcriptions of the conversations between Senise and these young people, showing how he succeeds in enlisting their interest and their cooperation in this search for themselves; here, in the majority of cases, it is easy to appreciate the work he does, witnessing the naturalness and simplicity with which he identifies with the adolescent and the adolescent's story, and then manages to promote a counter-identification on the part of the boy or girl with the therapist identified with him or her. This “gives rise to a mirror effect, already establishing a therapeutic relationship in itself”. I say “in the majority of cases”, because occasionally, as in the case of the report requested by a juvenile court on an adolescent awaiting trial for murder, described in Appendix I, I had great difficulty sharing Senise's extreme distress and sympathy, as well as his confidence in the poor lad's chances of rehabilitation.