Developmental Ruptures: The Psychoanalysis of Breakdown and Defensive Solutions

This book questions the diagnostic categories applied to adolescents from a developmental viewpoint, putting forth an alternative perspective for assessment that considers prognostic and risk indicators.

Going beyond the classification of adult psychopathology, Anna Maria Nicolò presents a multidimensional approach to the adolescent mind that explores its complexities through a clinical lens and accompanying theoretical prism. Often, crises in adolescence might well mark the onset of a psychotic process that does not respect phase-specific tasks. Yet in other cases, such developmental ruptures are the opportunity for a positive reorganisation of personality. In this way, adolescence may highlight latent childhood functioning or allow for new integrations. Therefore, accurate diagnosis and early intervention are necessary to enable the developmental reorganisation of both the patient and the family. Drawing on clinical case material, this book provides readers with the practical and theoretical tools to intervene in developmental ruptures.

Developmental Ruptures will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, and developmental psychologists, as well as to people working with psychotic onset and crises emerging particularly at the outset of puberty or young adulthood.

Anna Maria Nicolò, MD, child neuropsychiatrist, Training Analyst and Full Member of the Società Psicoanalitica Italiana (SPI) and International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), expert in child and adolescent psychoanalysis. Past President of the SPI. President of the International Association of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis (IACFP). She is a member of the Forum for Adolescence of the European Psychoanalytical Federation (FEP) Committee, of which she was Chair. Director of the Journal Interazioni.