Page - 201 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

Lost by the wayside – overstepping limits 201 An overriding wish for security and tenderness constitutes a central motive in teenage pregnancy. Instead of completely renouncing their own wishes to be a baby, the pregnant adolescents project them onto their actual baby. These wishes are half -conscious when pregnant teenagers profess to “playing” with the thoughts of a baby. A pregnant teenager’s fear and worry of whether she can cope with a baby are projected onto the future grandparents. They are meant to worry and oppose having the new child; this enables the young parents to avoid their inner conflicts, which nevertheless become manifest in major mood swings, vul- nerability and conspicuous weight gains or losses. Early pregnancies can be seen as an expression of separation conflict with the adolescents’ parents – experienced on the conscious level as adulthood, although in fact the young parents are delayed in becoming autonomous. They become not only financially more dependent on their parents, but also in caring for the baby – often living together with the new baby in the child’s former bedroom. In these heated, conflict -laden phases, adults such as teachers or family friends are of great significance. In all three case studies, teachers undertook to inform the future parents about pregnancy and natural childbearing, relaxation techniques and addresses of pregnancy groups. They used teenage pregnancy as an occasion for educating the other students about these themes. The baby is seen as an expression of an intimate partnership: children are often conceived when parents are very much in love, but also during crises of the rela- tionship. The baby is then seen unconsciously as a link between the mother and her romantic partner. When unclear ideas of the future prevail, a pregnancy can supply a feeling of “amazing meaning to life”, as Sarah describes it. The baby then constitutes a substitute for affection and recognition that is otherwise lacking. Throughout the pregnancy, the mother can experience an enhanced feeling of life and the mean- ing of life. A pregnancy during the inner upheaval of puberty places the adolescent under double pressure. In every pregnancy, the inner world becomes restructured (Diem- Wille 2004), with early unconscious conflicts with parents and various fantasies from early childhood updated and newly ordered in the context of the maternal and paternal body. When the pregnant mother is an adolescent, these inner struc- tures are turbulent enough, but also undergo yet another restructuring. On a very deep emotional level, having a baby represents great potency. In this case, ado- lescents have become persons who pass on life and create something new. These are not fantasies anymore, but are manifest in the real baby – which can be either terrifying or fulfilling, or both. 6.3 Psychic breakdown in adolescence In this section, we examine serious psychic problems arising in puberty. Under the rubric of psychic breakdown, I will discuss psychic disturbances such as depres- sion, psychotic episodes, mutism (the refusal to speak) and Asperger symptoms