Psychoanalytic-Interactional Psychotherapy of Severely Disturbed Adolescents

Abstract

Due to specific developmental conditions of adolescence like deficient self reflective capacities or reduced potential to articulate, the psychotherapy of adolescents is faced with special problems. In adolescents with severe Ego-structural disorders like Borderline (Development) Disorders these problems are increased exponentially. Patients replicate their negative and often traumatic relational experiences in everyday life as well as in therapy. The therapeutic treatment of relational entanglements often results in malignant repetitions. Here the Psychoanalytic-interactional Method (PiM) is suitable as intervention where the therapist approaches the patient as a person who influences the development positively and strives for Ego-structural advancement within the therapeutic relation. The Psychoanalytic-interactional Method allows for the adolescence-specific conditions of limited mentalization and particulary for the problem of Ego-structural disorders in adolescence. The method is demonstrated by treatment sequences of the therapy of a juvenile female patient with Borderline (Development) Disorder.