Secrets and security: knowledge and the confinement of adolescents

Adolescents in a psychiatric unit may go through periods of crisis. This paper analyses crises occurring at a psychiatric adolescent unit over a period of 4 months. These crises were found to have a circular pattern and each stage in the crisis connected demands for security with demands for the passage of information. Four patterns of crisis were identified, named as ambivalent, avoidant, chaotic and rigid. In each crisis the transferred information was found to be descriptive of the adolescent's relationship with adults important in his or her life. Each crisis could be understood as an attempt to change the adolescent's relationship with these adults.