Page - (000009) - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

My thanks is due to all who have supported and encouraged me through the realization of this project. My understanding of the inner world of adolescents has been influenced by my analyst mentors and teachers, above all Betty Joseph, Robin Anderson and Michael Feldman. Their suggestions and comments enriched my understanding. Practices of psychoanalytic observation and attention were revealed to me through the fascinating methods of Isca Salzberger -Wittenberg and Anne Alvarez. I also learned much from conversations with the parents of the children entrusted to me in my analytic work. Children and adolescents have fascinated me with their creativity, bringing their inner conflicts in such vital and unique form to analysis and establishing intense emotional relationships to me as their analyst; this has in turn enriched my analytic work. I thank my students Janette Erhard, Eva Pankratz and Andrea Staudner -Moser for so eagerly allowing me to use and quote passages from their Master’s and PhD dissertations. I thank my family for their intensive participation in the origins of the book. My daughters Katharina and Johanna, as well as my grandchildren Samira, Karim and Olivia, allowed me to experience their adolescent developmental phase with them; here, a grandmother’s perspective affords more space for reflection than the direct involvement of a mother would. Without the support and encouragement of my friends, the writing of this book would certainly have lasted far longer. My friend since schooldays, Christiane Siegl, was my first critical and encouraging reader, followed by further comments and enrichments from Erika Trappl and Gerti Wille. I was able to enlist Samira Hadaya as academic assistant, who carefully assembled and proofed the book’s academic research, illustrations and annotations. My editors Celestina Filbrandt and Ulrike Albrecht conceived this idea of extend- ing developmental theory from the early years of life and latency to adolescence – an idea I was glad to take up. For providing the illustrations, I thank Lukas Dostal, Karim Hadaya, Peter Diem and Johanna Hadaya -Diem. Acknowledgments