Transformation into adolescence

A transformational process from latency to adolescence is tracked in this essay of a disturbed boy who required an innovative therapeutic action that did not rely on the standard technique of interpretation of defense and conflict. The de-stabilization of the patient's mind-set as a victim was leveraged by the analyst's taking an extreme stance in keeping her own reflections to herself and, instead, assisting the boy's capacity to experience himself as an agent in his own right as he took us both on his journey towards self-discovery. This technical strategy also facilitated the shoring up of fragile self and object boundaries, provided a necessary fillip in the boy's capacity for affect differentiation and integration, and helped to create linkages between self and object representations in the present with hoped-for images of self and other in the future.