107C: Adolescence
Instructor
Gabrielle Silver, M.D.
March 20, 2024 – May 15, 2024
Wednesdays, 8:35 – 10:00 pm
Course Description
The goal of this course is to broaden your knowledge of the psychoanalytic understanding of adolescent development. Following a review of papers that shaped the early psychoanalytic understanding of adolescent development, we will examine several concepts that are key to a contemporary analytic conception of the adolescent period: separation from parents and the movement toward adulthood and adult sexuality, the defensive use of action in adolescence, identification and identity, and the consolidation of the superego and the ego ideal. In our final meetings, we will focus on the transition from late adolescence to young adulthood, and on manifestations of adolescent conflict in adulthood. We will use clinical vignettes, two novels The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas (2017) and Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher (2007) as well as two Netflix shows: Euphoria and Sex Education to illustrate these concepts and issues.
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
1. discuss key concepts integral to the analytic understanding of adolescent process: identification and identity, separation from parents and the movement toward adulthood and adult sexuality, the consolidation of the superego and the ego ideal, and the defensive use of action in adolescence.
2. “hear” adolescent themes in their clinical treatment of adult patients, thus targeting their clinical interventions with greater attunement to their patients’ ongoing, unresolved adolescent struggles and conflicts.
Evaluation Method
Each student’s participation in class discussion and his or her demonstration of understanding of the course objectives and reading material is assessed in a written evaluation by the instructor(s).
These articles are protected under relevant copyright regulations. They are available in the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute Electronic Reserve for your convenience, and for your personal use.
READINGS ARE CONFIRMED.
I. Introduction to Adolescence; Para-adolescence and Early Adolescence
CLASS 1: March 20, 2024
REQUIRED READINGS
Blos, P. (1967). The Second Individuation Process of Adolescence. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 22: 162-186.
Gilmore, K. & Meersand, P. (2014). Normal Child and Adolescent Development: A Psychodynamic Primer. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Publishing, pp. 179-202. (Chapter 7: Preadolescence: Bodily Challenges, Changing Relationships, and the Transition to the Teen Years).
Stortelder, F. & Ploegmakers-Burg, M. (2022). Adolescence and the Reorganization of Infant Development: A Neuro-Psychoanalytic Model. Psychodynamic Psychiatry, 50:181-205.
II. The Early Psychoanalytic Understanding of Adolescence: Anna Freud, Sigmund Freud
CLASS 2: March 27, 2024
REQUIRED READINGS
Freud, Anna. (1937). The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense. In: The Writings of Anna Freud, Vol. 2. New York: International Universities Press, 1966, 137-151 (Chapter 11: The Ego and the Id at Puberty) and 152-172 (Chapter 12: Instinctual Anxiety during Puberty).
Freud, Sigmund. (1905). Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality: The Transformations of Puberty. In: Standards Education of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 7, (1901-1905), 207-230.
III. Early and Middle Adolescence: Body, Sexuality and Action
CLASS 3: April 3, 2024
REQUIRED READINGS
Laufer, M. E. (1996). The Role of Passivity in the Relationship to the Body during Adolescence. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 51:348-364.
Wooldridge, T. (2023). Boys and Their Muscles: The Paternal Object in Muscle Dysmorphia. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 76:123-139.
SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AS BACKGROUND:
Chused, J. (1990). Neutrality in the Analysis of Action Prone Adolescents. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 38(3): 679-704.
REVIEW: Gilmore, Karen J. and Meersand, P. (2014). Normal Child and Adolescent Development: A Psychodynamic Primer. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Publishing. (Read Chapter 8: Early and Mid-Adolescence: The Importance of the Body, Sexuality, and Individuation, the Role of Action, and the Special Problems of the Teen Years).
IV. Identity: Identification, Idealization, Race…
CLASS 4: April 10, 2024
REQUIRED READINGS
Ainslie, R. C., Harlem, A., Tummala-Narra, P., Barbanel, L. & Ruth, R. (2013). Contemporary Psychoanalytic Views on the Experience of Immigration. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 30:663-679.
Leary, K. (2007). Racial Insult and Repair. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 17:539-549.
Shankar, S. (2023). The Romanticization of Mental Illness and Adolescent Identity Formation: Marina and the Diamond’s Electra Heart. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 76:199-204.
Suslovic, B. (2020). Mitigating racial loneliness as transformative psychoanalytic work. Psychoanalysis Culture and Society, 25:480-489.
SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AS BACKGROUND:
Chused, J. F. (1987). Idealization of the Analyst by the Young Adult. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 35:839-859.
Cramer, P. Protecting the Self: Defense Mechanisms in Action. New York: The Guilford Press, 2006, 93-122. (Chapter 5: Identification)
Smith, H. F. (2001). Hearing Voices: The Fate of the Analyst’s Identifications. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 49:781-812.
V. Late Adolescence: Gender, Love, Work
CLASS 5: April 17, 2024
REQUIRED READINGS
Gilmore, K. (2019). Is Emerging Adulthood a New Developmental Phase?. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 67:625-653.
Morgan, M. (2020). Being a couple and developing the capacity for creative parenting: a psychoanalytic perspective. Journal of Child Psychotherapy, 46:191-205.
SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AS BACKGROUND:
REVIEW: Gilmore, Karen J. and Meersand, Pamela. Normal Child and Adolescent Development: A Psychodynamic Primer. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2014, 249-282. (9: Late Adolescence: Identity, Sexuality, Autonomy, and Superego Formation in the Late Teens and Early Twenties).
Jacobs, T., and Chused, J. (1989). Psychoanalysis of the Young Adult: Theory and Technique. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 35: 175-186.
VI. Late Adolescence: The Superego and the Ego Ideal
CLASS 6: April 24, 2024
REQUIRED READINGS
McGehee, R. (2021). The Effect of Marijuana Use on Personality Development in Adolescence and Young Adulthood. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 74:265-279.
Sugarman, A. (2021). The Impact of Internet Pornography on Male Adolescent Mental Organization. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 74:174-190.
SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AS BACKGROUND:
Blos, P. (1974). Genealogy of the Ego Ideal. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 29: 43-88.
Esman, A. (1971). Consolidation of the Ego Ideal in Contemporary Adolescence. In A. Esman (Ed.), The Psychology of Adolescence: Essential Readings. New York: International Universities Press, 211-218.
VII. Identity and Identity Diffusion
CLASS 7: May 1, 2024
Friedman, R. C. & Downey, J. (2022). Internalized Homophobia and the Negative Therapeutic Reaction. Psychodynamic Psychiatry, 50:88-99.
Ikiz, S. & Houssier, F. (2023). The End of Adolescence, Becoming an Adult: From Reverie to the Project. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 76:168-189.
SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AS BACKGROUND
Erikson, E. H. (1956). The Problem of Ego Identity. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 4:56-121.
VIII. Separation from Parents and Adult Sexuality
CLASS 8: May 8, 2024
REQUIRED READINGS
Feldman, M. (2016). Undutiful daughters: Growing up in feminism and psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis Culture and Society, 21:232-241.
Lena, F. (2017). Working with and ‘seeing through’ the sexual transference in the psychotherapy of an adolescent boy. Journal of Child Psychotherapy, 43:40-54.
SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS AS BACKGROUND
Blos, P. (1962). On Adolescence: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation. New York: Free Press, 159-169 (Chapter IV: Masturbation).
Laufer, M. (1976). The Central Masturbation Fantasy. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 31: 287-316.
IX. Attachment and Adolescence
CLASS 9: May 15, 2024
Guest Instructor: Miriam Steele, Ph.D.