Adolescent Psychoanalysis

The Deconstruction and Construction of Adolescents and Their Analysts

Chapter 13

Part 1

(Re-Titled and revised 4/6/09)

“Youth is easily deceived, because it is quick to hope.” Aristotle.

The relevance of this pithy statement by Aristotle to the subject(s) at hand is multi-faceted. For the sake of our adolescent analysands, to understand the impact this principle has on their lives is crucial. Some are too quick to hope, which is one of the reasons that hopes, quick solutions, saturated with certainty, are so prevalent in many adolescents, often bolstered by boundless idealism and energy. To not have the patience to analyze these hopes, be they quick, not well thought out, or blessed with certainties, is a recipe for disaster. Our ‘hopes’ are often quite different than our adolescent brethren. Our ‘hopes’ are more mature, more grounded, and more attached to what we call reality. Or so we think.

I intend to construct a somewhat naïve categorization of both psycho-analysts and adolescent analysands. I have a distinct purpose in mind for this division, which will hopefully become evident. These distinctions are largely different from aspects of the self that we study in traditional psychoanalysis. The elements we study are, nearly universally, elements of psycho-pathology. For example, it may be clear in the analysis of a patient that he suffers from envy of his father and acts out by having sex with as many ‘mothers’ as possible. His analysis is later said to be successfully completed and some diagnosis or another will be attached to him.

But, although supposedly well analyzed, this practice of this ex-patient continues, but under a different guise. Although the actions are the same, they are this time not considered a ‘problem’ by the ex-patient, but as an expression of his identification with ‘sad’ woman, whose days he can ‘brighten.’ He might even receive a diagnosis, perhaps Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Another example I can cite is this. A patient, who is an analyst, fancied himself as a pillar of moral judgment, thought, and action, but who functioned in life as anything but. He frequently had sexual relations with supervisees and married two others. He is very unlikely to see these activities as pathological, perhaps only as matters of appropriate judgment. In any event, in the divisions you will see below, I am much less interested in the ‘causes’ of these personalities, but the actual functioning of these personalities.

All hopes and desires of adolescents are not omnipotent exercises in wild minded fantasy. Many adolescents, however, lean far in that direction. These adolescents are far and away the most difficult, yet enjoyable, to treat, show boundless portions of the characteristics listed above and are often laden with large amounts of energy, omnipotence and otherwise. And, as their two adult brethren described above, are expert at rationalizing their activities. These adolescents are arbitrarily labeled by me as personality Type B adolescents.

Type A adolescents, however, show few of the above characteristics. Type A adolescents often are the population that fit most easily into our ordinary, adult, theoretical and treatment backgrounds and approaches, usually quite different than the examples given above. Their symptoms are often of withdrawal, depression, schizoid, a or anti-social, etc. In many ways, they are ‘grown up’ adolescents.

Again, making another, yet similar, arbitrary distinction, I wish to divide analysts and their personalities as I did adolescents. These are analysts who attempt to analyze adolescents. Therefore, there are Type A and Type B analysts. A and B analysts bear many of the same characterological traits as their corresponding adolescent brethren, but from a ‘grown up’ point of view. Type B analyst is more social, more socially experienced, more an adolescent at heart, personally familiar and comfortable with the lives of adolescents, their habits, their foibles, and skilled at relating to and forming relationships with adolescents, tolerant of rationalization, all while being a well-trained, mature Psychoanalyst. Type A analyst is also a well-trained, mature psychoanalyst. He is also very serious, formal, usually less social and with less social experience, is often very uncomfortable with some adolescent activities (e.g. language, sex, drugs, rationalization) and not good at forming relationships or identifying with adolescents.

There are many useful distinctions between Analyst Type A and B. All analysts, as well as everyone else, are part infant, child, adolescent and adult. The crucial question is this: what kind of infant, child, adolescent and adult are we or have we been? Further, what have we done with those aspects of ourselves? Or put another way, how have A and B analysts been Constructed?

All of us, including both Type A and B analysts, are clearly different genetically. Further, we have also been raised differently, from infancy forward. We have had different types of parents, different mothers, parenting styles, levels of humor, love, social values, interests, levels of encouragement, empathy, understanding, passion, openness, generosity, structure, predictability, rigidity, etc. Some of us were raised in households which lack most of the above characteristics being more cold and distant, more formal, less love-filled, less empathetic, less humor-filled, withholding, disrespectful, demanding, etc. And, of course, most families are mixtures of the above. We all believe, with extensive evidence, in the formative effects of nurture. While there are many sources of nurture, ordinarily the family leads the way.

(I am intentionally leaving out ‘intelligence’ as a distinguishing part of the nature/nurture equation yielding Type A and Type B analysts and adolescents, be it genetically created or environmentally stimulated or both. For the purposes of this discussion I am assuming that intelligence or Piaget’s Intelligences, or whatever intelligence measurement is used, to be equal.)

Further, again narrowing the field of discussion, I wish to focus on the relatively new distinction that many now make between the “right” brain and “left” brain. The concept of “right” brain and “left” brain thinking developed from the research in the late 1960s by an American psycho-biologist Roger W Sperry. He discovered that the human brain has two very different ways of thinking. One (the ‘‘right” brain) is visual and processes information in an intuitive and simultaneous way, looking first at the whole picture then the details. The other (the “left” brain) is verbal and processes information in an analytical and sequential way, looking first at the pieces then putting them together to get the whole. Sperry was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1981, although subsequent research has shown things aren’t quite as polarized as once thought (nor as simple), perhaps a saving grace for us.

I am assuming that the prominence of these two entities is genetically determined and is present in both Adolescent Type A and B, and Psychoanalyst Type A and B. No one is all of either, but these are genetically determined brain functions and not modifiable by experience, teaching, etc. Most, however, show prominence, sometimes dramatically, of one or the other. With respect to adolescents we treat, the prevalence of “right” and “left” brain are random, as are this distribution amongst analysts.

Analysts, both type A and B clearly have to have and have had access to superior “left” brain functioning. Without our “left” brain, we would never have achieved the skill levels that we have. Being a good surgeon is largely a “left” brain function. Achieving a high GPA in college in scientific subjects is yet another illustration. On the other hand, some other skills are not as ‘scientifically based’, but are based on the “right” brain. The prominence or lack of ‘‘right” brain functioning varies as widely from analyst to analyst, as adolescent to adolescent.

The importance of these differences, the ‘balance’ between “left” and “right”, cannot be over emphasized. A largely “left” brained analyst, with little or minimal support of “right” brained functions, is narrowly “left” brained. Many characteristics, empathy and compassion, for example, will be at a minimum, as will humor, love, understanding of adolescent social values and interests, levels of encouragement, empathy, openness, generosity, etc., will all be at a minimum. Worse yet, those of us who were raised in households mirroring the above characteristics, possessing most of the above characteristics, being more cold and distant, more formal, less love-filled, less empathetic, humorless, withholding, disrespectful, demanding, biased, etc., will also be doubly unblessed. Social experience and ordinary relationship formation, bolstered by little “right” brain strengths, will be at a minimum.

Many of us have not earned our reputation as ‘strange’ people, ‘weird’ people, and people living in an ‘ivory tower’, by accident. Perhaps this is because of the relative lack of influence of our “right” brain, dominance of “left” brain and the consequences of this division. Minus considerable “right” brain support, many of us can’t tell the difference between ‘science’ and ‘not science’, theoretical love from actual love, anxiety from panic, etc. The ability to be ‘social’ and to be ‘socialized’ is not a course offered in medical school, cannot be learned from a book, but is an ‘intelligence’ that is innate, or at a minimum a ‘potential’ space of our mind waiting to be filled (Piaget). Or not. “Piaget thought that intelligence develops in all children through the assimilation of new information into existing cognitive structures, including, for example, common sense, [judicious, level-headed, prudent, reasonable, sagacious, sage, sapient, sensible, sound, well-founded, well-grounded] and the accommodation of those structures themselves to the new information” (Neisser et al., 1996, p. 80).

There may be great wisdom in some of Piaget’s theories. However, Piaget apparently never encountered the near impossibility of teaching mathematics to an artist or painting to a mathematician. Or perhaps didn’t consider the possibility that supposedly existing cognitive structures of the “left” brain may not exist in the “right” brain. Or the fact that we are not all born with a full complement of cognitive structures, or that there might be other structures present that are not cognitive, not A but B, not cognitive but different. Or, for that matter, that ‘cognitive structures’ of the “left” brain may be fundamentally physically different and function in profoundly different ways than the “right” brain.

The deconstructed adolescent shows many differences, one to another. This same principle also applies to analysts. Re-constructed adolescents will yield a variety of adolescents, much as analysts. Matching reconstructed A analyst with A adolescent will have a great chance of success, although numerically there are far less Type A adolescents brought for treatment. Type A analyst matched with type B adolescent simply will not work. B analyst matched with B adolescent has an excellent chance of working. Type B adolescents are the group most often brought for analysis. In the absence of AA and BB, B analyst matched with A adolescent has at least some chance of success. (more on this topic later. I would like to remind the reader that what I mean by ‘work’ has to do with personality types of analyst and adolescent melding constructively.

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