Neutrality in the analysis of action-prone adolescents |
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Authors: | J F Chused |
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Affiliation: | Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, Washington, D.C. |
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Abstract: | An adolescent patient's action during analysis reflects both neurotic conflicts and the developmentally determined task of establishing an integrated self-representation. Concern for the consequences of the action often provokes the analyst to respond, covertly, with interventions intended to change the action through influence rather than understanding. This can lead to a distortion of the analytic process which, in itself, may be an enactment of the developmental conflict. Examination of such interventions reveals a lack of analytic neutrality and an unconscious participation in the patient's neurotic and developmental conflicts. Clinical material from the analyses of two fourteen-year-old girls and a sixteen-year-old boy is presented to illustrate and support this hypothesis. |
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