A perspective on therapeutic work with in-patient adolescents

It is generally difficult to explain the complex practice of psychotherapeutic work with in-patient adolescents. This is because the adolescent workers' relatively "relaxed" enterprise of promoting the process of self-understanding within the adolescents is overshadowed by the concurrent high profile activity of their managing these troubled young people. This paper attempts to address what is indeed a perennial difficulty by way of a close study or phenomenology of the workers' on-going therapeutic relationships with in-patient adolescents. For the purposes of the investigation the author utilizes the idea of "working closely" as technical concept and guiding principle in the residential treatment and care of troubled adolescents.