The adolescent and his parents: the parental crisis

Abstract

We are concerned in this article with the reaction of parents to adolescents in crisis. This may be sufficient to create a parental crisis in response. The psychodynamics of the process of adolescence have been described by many analysists. We note and illustrate psychodynamic factors in the parents of adolescents: possible incest, mourning over lost controls (a work of mourning in line with that of their adolescents), and a revival of the frustrations of their own youth. Inadequate organisation of these factors by the parents can aggravate their adolescent's crisis. This leads us to include the parents as often as possible in the management of adolescents, both in the assessment and in our therapeutic endeavours.