First loves and prime adventures: adolescent expressions in adult analyses

Adolescent processes are frequently overlooked in the analyses of adults. The author focuses on the importance and meaning of first loves in the lives of adolescents and demonstrates how these prime experiences reverberate in the analyses of adults. She suggests that adolescent experiences cannot simply or usefully be reduced to preoedipal or oedipal meanings. Explanations for the neglect of adolescent phenomena are offered both historically, in terms of Freud's lack of understanding of adolescence, and clinically, in terms of countertransference and transference. It is argued that the intense affects of adolescence contribute to the resistance to re-experiencing them in treatment.