[The long good-bye--paths of psychoanalysis in late adolescence]

These reflections about late adolescence are inspired by a novel by Peter Handke, entitled "Der kurze Brief zum langen Abschied" (original; translated: A short letter about the long good-bye). The protagonist's troublesome and painful separation from his wife taking place during a trip through the United States is interpreted as an attachment-conflict towards the mother that has not been dissolved during late adolescence. The essential characteristic of late adolescence is taking one's final leave from the infantile and adolescent parental imagines and the reapproachment to the real parents. In case of a failure late adolescence may easily lead to a syndrome of rejection or of overadjustment or of drop-out-identity. Especially in the rejection or in the drop-out-identity one can find object-relationships resembling those found in narcicistic or borderline-disorders. In many cases these adolescents lack the transitional scope they would have needed to find their way to autonomy or to the ability of containing (BION).