Adolescence and Developmental Breakdown: A Psychoanalytic View

In this book, Moses and Egle Laufer contend that severely disturbed adolescents can be assessed and treated psychoanaytically, and that their illness differs from comparable illness in older patients, and that the psychopathology has its conflicts over the sexually mature body.

Moses Laufer (1926 - 2006) was a Canadian psychoanalyst who pioneered work with adolescents and founded the Brent Centre for Young People in London. After moving to London in 1955, he became a member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society, becoming its president in the mid-1980s. He was also chair of the International Psycho-Analytical Association. He published a great number of papers in the 'International Journal of Psychoanalysis', and authored several influential works including 'Adolescence and Developmental Breakdown' (1984), 'The Suicidal Adolescent' (1995), and 'Adolescent Breakdown and Beyond' (1997).