Page - 88 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

88 Development of feeling period where Dorothy was a small child, her mother had been very unhappy and unable to find joy in her new baby. I understand Dorothy’s breakdown after being left by her boyfriend as a revival of her early traumatic experiences. Not only did she feel abandoned by her father, but she identified with her abandoned mother – although she had more or less neglected Dorothy during this difficult time. If we wish to understand why Dorothy selected self -mutilation (cutting) as a form for expressing her inner conflicts, we must reflect further. In her imagination, her father was strong and powerful, whereas she and her mother were helpless and subject to his arbitrary wishes. She unconsciously identified with her strong and cruel father, who caused her pain – just as she caused herself pain with a knife (=father). At the same time, she was her helpless mother, who also was caused pain. Thus, she was an active agent cutting her own body, nevertheless feeling relief, strength and potency, mixed with guilt. In her fantasy, she embodies her parents’ union – she is both the giver and the taker, with her body as arena. On the conscious level, she only felt her inner tension dissolve after cutting herself. Self -destructive behavior can have various causes; for each adolescent, the links from his life history must be investigated and analyzed, although we can assume that the true causes cannot be found without therapy. The pain from cut- ting can also counter the adolescent’s feeling of numbness, since feeling pain is an authentic sensory experience – proof to the self -mutilating adolescent that he exists. Rosalin’s story is completely different from Dorothy’s. Rosalin, 15 ½ Rosalin is 15 ½ when her older sister, with whom she has an especially close relationship, marries. She has three older sisters, and her parents have a harmonic relationship. When her older sister enters a steady relationship after graduating from school, Rosalin reacts with outbreaks of tears and depression. She begins to make friends with girls in her class who dislike school, and through these girls she becomes acquainted with three boys who refuse to go to school. She is drawn more and more strongly into this gang, who also deal in drugs. Her parents try to talk with Rosalin, but she denies all their help, accusing them of being conserva- tive, middle class and contemptuous of people beneath their social class. Discussion Martha Harris (2007) describes the background behind this crisis which caused the parents to seek a therapist’s help. Rosalin perceived her older sister’s aca- demic success and romantic relationship as a terrible loss. Her reaction was to break out of her dependency on the family and forge her own path, thus denying her family’s values of academic achievement. She criticizes her parents. Behind