In Dreams Begin Responsibilities: Adolescence and Potential Space

Abstract

The transitional phase leading from late adolescence to the establishment of identity as an adult is filled with the potential for peril or promise. Several late adolescent journeys will be recounted in this chapter, narrated in different voices, and drawn from diverse sources. In particular, I will consider a literary text, written on the eve of the author's 21st birthday, as well as presenting clinical material drawn from analytic work with an adolescent in crisis. By employing a Winnicottian lens, I will consider these journeys as creative attempts to project the self through potential space and potential time. Creativity and the capacity for play enable some late adolescents to begin successfully assuming the responsibilities of adulthood; for others, the attempt breaks down, is aborted, or takes a malignant course. Thus, adolescent dreams can come to chart the path toward an establishment of secure adult identity, or they may evolve into a nightmare, engendering fragmentation and possible antisocial behavior. Within the therapeutic setting, the establishment of vital, mutual engagement, as well as the provision of a secure play space, in which creative, productive dreams can emerge, has significant positive implications for analytic work with troubled late adolescents and young adults.

Keywords:

• adolescence
• identity
• potential space
• transitional space
• young adulthood
• enactment

Notes

¹ Sharon Olds (1987) in her autobiographical poem, “I Go Back to May 1937,” adopts a very similar voice to that of Schwartz. In the context of imagining her parents’ courtship, Olds cries out:

I want to go up to them and say Stop, don't do it—she's the wrong woman, he's the wrong man, you are going to do things you cannot imagine you would ever do, you are going to do bad things to children, you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of, you are going to want to die. (p. 23)

² It is clear that Schwartz was the model for the character of the poet von Humboldt Fleisher in Saul Bellow's novel, Humboldt's Gift (1975/1996). He describes the unfulfilled potential of Humboldt/Schwartz's later years in the following terms: “Poet, thinker, problem drinker, pill-taker, man of genius, manic depressive, intricate scheme, success story, he once wrote poems of great beauty but what had he done lately? Had he uttered the great words and songs he had in him? He had not. Unwritten poems were killing him” (p. 25).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James E. Gorney

James E. Gorney, Ph.D., is in private practice in Knoxville, Tennessee. He is the author of various papers on innovations in psychoanalytic technique, Winnicott, Lacan, and self-psychology. Dr. Gorney served on the staff of the Austen Riggs Center and has taught at New York Hospital-Cornell, Duquesne, and the University of Tennessee.