Resisting the Call of the Future: Turning Points in an Adolescent Analysis

ABSTRACT

Originally presented as the plenary presentation at the annual meeting of the Association for Child Psychoanalysis in Denver, 2016, this is a report of a portion of a psychoanalytic treatment of an adopted adolescent with learning disabilities and ADHD who is moving into emerging adulthood. Innovative features of the therapeutic action are highlighted, as the analyst describes the “turning points” in the forward shifts of the analytic work.

KEYWORDS:

• Turning points
• child analysis
• ADHD
• learning disabilities
• therapeutic action

Notes

1. For the purpose of protecting confidentiality, some of the details of the treatment and Grace’s life are disguised.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Claudia Lament

Claudia Lament, Ph.D. is a Training and Supervising Analyst at The Psychoanalytic Association of New York, an affiliate of The New York University Langone School of Medicine; the Editor-in-Chief of The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child; and the President of The Anna Freud Foundation.