Adolescent Psychoanalysis

Something About Mary

Chapter 15

Part 1

Preface:

Below are some session notes, a total of 5, of Mary.  They span a period of 14 months. They, but for the last two, have already been published.  There are discussions of each session, some modified from their first addition, others new. Utilizing a geometric model, I ask the reader to consider each of these five sessions as small overlapping circles encompassed by one large circle. I will address each of these smaller sessions/circles and the part(s) of her they represent. Then, having done that, consider all 5 as a single piece, represented by the all-encompassing circle. The last portion of this chapter is that discussion.

In addition to providing the material for the above discussion, these session notes are included for at least 4 additional reasons:  First, and most obviously, is to report these sessions, which may be useful in and of themselves; Second to show that it is possible to form a constructive relationship with an adolescent, even if they are very ill; Third, although I won’t burden the reader with a complete history of Mary, to indicate how in a proper analytic environment even with the most bizarre material is knowable and interconnections both are there and can be seen; and Forth, to illustrate what I mean by talking with Mary about Mary as she sees herself, her definitions of her life, as she describes them, at that point in time, having avoided telling Mary what she ‘really’ means, all the while trying to find what Mary does mean.

Session One—The Birds and Hamster– from Chapter 9, Part 1

Discussion:  Suffice it to say that Mary’s life has been bizarre by virtually anyone’s standards. Her home life or what passes for home life is bizarre.  Her parents are divorced, her mother unseen by Mary for 12 years.  Her mother is said to be schizophrenic as is Mary’s brother. Mary’s other brother is in a treatment center in Texas.

Her father, on a quarterly or semi-annual basis, moved/moves, into Mary’s home, a woman who is initially called a ‘babysitter’ who’s title changes within a week to ‘girlfriend’ and not long after that to ‘wife’.  ‘Wife’ here is a relative term in that this new young woman is called ‘wife’ so that she can sign documents, especially having to do with school, without her father having to attend to Mary and her school himself.  So, over the course of a number of years, there have been somewhere between 10-15 ‘babysitters’ cum ‘girlfriend’ cum ‘wife’.  (no pun intended) They usually all have numerous characteristics in common: they are usually severely emotionally challenged and usually are either active or inactive drug users.  And, perhaps worst, they virtually all leave under very bizarre circumstances.  That is to say, they either run away or are thrown out, their successor already selected and waiting in the wings.  Mary has formed relationships with at least some of these women, who all promise that they will maintain contact with her and up to now, none have. 

The Birds and Hamster

 “So in class and they had pictures of birds,” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Was this bird-class?” I ask.

“No but somebody brought fake birds to class and you push a button and they start squawing” she said.

“Who brought the birds,” I asked.

“I was scarred before,” she said.

“So you can’t tell if they’re real or not?” I asked.

“yeah. And some birds bite hard,” she said.

“So you have the bandaid because you got bit?” I asked.

“ No (laughing). But the first thing you see is the beak,” she said.

“When I was younger I wanted a parakeet—when I was 6. I never got one but I got a hamster. I also didn’t want to put my hand next to him. He was the devil. I named the hamster fluffy. He would bit so hard,” she said.

“Fluffy, I said, laughing. You’ve had a long history of animals that like to bite you,” I said.

“Well, then I got a dog. They don’t bite me. That hamster was so scarry. It would bit any one

“In general hamsters don’t bite, but this one bit you. A vicious hamster. A general biter”, I said.

“I decided to bring it to school and scare my teacher. I put the hamster in the closet and it came out. Everyone was screaming. I wasn’t, so I got caught it. I was just laughing. The teacher was afraid of hamsters. It had red eyes too. Many of them thought it was a rat. They called my grandma since my father didn’t pick up the phone. And she picked me up. They had a big family meeting,” she said.

“Hamster meeting?” I asked.

“Yeah –there were lots of relatives there. Everyone kept asking, why would I do such a thing.
I thought it was really funny. My grandma was telling me that a normal person wouldn’t have done that,” she said.

“Therefore you were abnormal,” I asked.

“Yeah. What could I say,” she said.

“Punishment?” I asked.

“No. My father said, no more hamsters. Whatever. The hamster became the school pet. The teacher kept it as a pet. Other kids would take him home for night,” she said.

“Bite them?” I asked.

“No. I have no idea why. It had bitten every body in my family, but didn’t bite them. Maybe we scarred him,” she said.

The Linden Center

Chapter 14 

 A number of friends have told me that they think the contents of this chapter, Chapter 15, should have been Chapter 1.  They argued that I should focus my thoughts about adolescent psychoanalysis around my experience with the analysis of adolescents at The Linden Center.  However, the chapters are ordered in the way they came to me. Not to run this principle into the ground, but psychoanalysis, particularly with adolescents, is exactly the same.  Things come the way they do. They can’t be planned. 

It was at the beginning of 1980 that I, along with talented partners Jane Hays, Lee Shershow, Marilyn McKnight, and Shirley Phillips founded Linden Center, a residential/day treatment center for very disturbed children and adolescents.  I was the main force.

At The Linden Center, children and adolescents were and are offered Residential Treatment, Special Education, and considerable Individual and Family Psycho-Therapy and Psychoanalysis. Approximately 3300 children and adolescents have participated in 3 day programs, 3 special education schools, residential treatment, as well as individual, group and family psychotherapy, and psychoanalysis over the past 28 years.

The original founders, with the exception of myself, have gone on to a variety of other areas in the fields of mental health and special education.  Lee Shershow, M.D., long time friend, is a graduate of the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Institute and Member of the American and International Psychoanalytic Association, is board certified in Psychiatry. His practice is in Oregon.

I have been Director of Linden Center since it’s inception.  During that time, in addition to my duties as Director of The Linden Center, I have continued a full analytic practice, my focus changing more and more to analyzing adolescents.  My contact and participation with the various Institutes in Los Angeles has been progressively more limited and non-existent at present.

I get along with adolescents, both in and out of the consulting room, which has always been a considerable advantage to me. I have given only passing attention to this fact, until the last 5 years. Prior to that, I had considered rarely and briefly, such exotic (sic) explanations as my ‘sterling’ personality, my particular position and experiences socially and academically in grammar school and middle school, being one of the ‘boys’ in High School, a member of a highly social, ‘wild’ fraternity at Berkley, etc. as a possible explanations. Further, I do identify heavily with adolescents.  I also knew that I did and do work very differently than many of my analytic colleagues, in spite of my very broad range of traditional training. And, possibly un-relatedly, have had far too many to count or remember non-analytic experiences with adolescents at The Linden Center, their teachers, therapists, counselors,  parents, etc.

I have analyzed approximately 80 adolescents, largely with seemingly helpful results.  Then, for a variety of reasons, about five years ago,  I became much more interested in trying to understand my work, it’s seeming uniqueness and it’s relationship to psychoanalytic theory and practice as I knew it and know it now. 

The Deconstruction and Construction of Adolescents and Their Analysts

Chapter 13

Addendum

(The following is a partial reprint of an early paragraph of this chapter, (part 1) re-formulated to address the mental health, education, ongoing development of Adolescents as well as Psycho-analytic Candidates, Senior Analysts, and Psycho-analytic Institutes. The successful analysis of adolescents requires skills that are very similar to what should be the skills we bring to each other in our development as analysts.

The majority of us are Type A analysts, and therefore, but for rare exceptions, were Type A Candidates.  Our adolescent patients are very often Type B. They often reach quick, rapidly changing solutions, are saturated with certainty, often bolstered by idealism and energy and usually clearly aligned against those who think fundamentally differently from they.

Some candidates and analysts resemble adolescents.  Only some. For us to not have the patience to tolerate and nurture the thoughts and hopes of these groups, be they quick, having thoughts that are not well thought out, or omnipotently certain, means that there will be no development. For those of us who hope for the usefulness and preservation of Psycho-analysis, in my case particularly for adolescents, the absence of such tolerance is a recipe for disaster.

Most of us Analysts’, Candidates’, and Institutes’ ‘hopes’ are more mature, more grounded than adolescents and more attached to what we call reality.  Or so we think. A key issue, however, is that often our maturity and our ‘understanding’ of reality functions not as an asset, but as an anchor chain.  Our views of reality very often contradict, sometimes virtually completely, the ‘realities’ of adolescents.  Our views applied to adolescents cause our views to be anchor chains not assets.

The set of Adolescents, Psycho-analytic Candidates, Analysts, and Psycho-Analytic Institutes, surprisingly, is a logical set. Ideally, the atmosphere in which this set should reside, should resemble as closely as possible that which is suited to a Type B adolescent. The members of this set would seek a fresh, full of life, experimenting, questioning, doubting, etc., environment, in the midst of appropriate structure.  Adolescents, as part of this set, are both living and embarking on a new and what should be a formative and fulfilling epoch in their life. The others of this set should settle for nothing less for themselves.

In talking to a colleague the other day, he listed a group of Los Angeles and Southern Psycho-analytic Institute graduates, who were well known to him, who had simply disappeared or who moved on elsewhere.  He had little or no idea where the ‘where’ was. The reasons for their departure are undoubtedly as many as there are individuals who left.  Most of them have nothing to do with any of the numerous fledgling analytic ‘Institutes’ now in Los Angeles which have replaced what used to be the two major Institutes in Los Angeles. I, like some of the ‘disappeared’ colleagues, have had no attachment, formal or informal, to any Los Angeles Institute for many years. 

The Los Angeles and Southern California Institutes no longer exist as they were, from my point of view, a tragic development.  The fighting over who bore the ultimate truth, was obviously a major cause of their demise.  Economics and lack of interest of potential candidates undoubtedly contributed as well. Unlike the Asian girl written about above, we never escaped our brand of A track, or modified it.  We ‘never looked down’.

Bearing in mind that this book is about the analysis of adolescents, this attitude, not looking down, is exactly what makes the analysis of adolescents so difficult.  If one approaches an adolescent with such an attitude, ‘looking up‘, failure is virtually guaranteed.