The experimental method of adolescents: Bärbel Inhelder's unfinished symphony

Bärbel Inhelder's name is almost inseparable from that of Jean Piaget. She has contributed largely to the Genevan school of psychology, and particularly to its only tome on adolescence, The Growth of Logical Thinking. What is less well-known is that the protocols used in that text came directly from Inhelder's personal research project on inductive reasoning. As well as working with Piaget, Inhelder actively pursued her own research interests, that is, the development of experimental methods in adolescents, aiming at publishing her own volume on the topic. However, that book-Inhelder's unfinished symphony-was rediscovered as a manuscript after her death and has never appeared. The search for documents to contextualize this omission inevitably focuses on Inhelder's working conditions and the social context in Geneva during that period and proposes some possible explanations for the missing publication. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).