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 Nicolo 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.

About the Author

Anna Maria Nicolo, MD, child neuropsychiatrist, Training Analyst and Full Member of the Societa 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.

Reviews

"In this fascinating volume, Anna Nicolo masterfully combines her long and in-depth international experience with the innovative creativity of Italian psychoanalysis, of which she is today one of the most authoritative and appreciated exponents. The result is a free and wide-ranging - though rigorous - capacity for theoretical articulation, with special effectiveness in the in-depth clinical reading of adolescent situations and their kaleidoscopic evolutionary complexity".

Stefano Bolognini, IPA past president

"In her excellent book Developmental Ruptures, Anna Maria Nicolo gives a vivid and subtle representation of adolescent psychic turmoil. She goes beyond the classification of adult psychopathology, to detect the evolutive power most often hidden in adolescent ruptures and collapses. Due to her exceptional clinical and theoretical competences, she opens broadly the field of observation and of listening of adolescent patients, and she proves that 'adolescence is not only a temporal phase, but also an enzyme that permeates the mind and forces to confront oneself with the life cycle' - as she writes. Every practitioner in the field of psychic disease will benefit from reading this outstanding book."

Florence Guignard, Founder of the Societe Europeenne pour la Psychanalyse de l'Enfant et de l'Adolescent (Sepea), Honorary full member of the Paris Psychoanalytical Society (SPP)

"This book is an important contribution to the psychoanalysis of young people. The author shares her vast clinical experience and also her approach to theory from a pluralistic and open approach. We have long been used to thinking in terms of processes and continuities. The concept of ruptures is very timely in the context of the times we have been living in, where uncertainty and disruption predominate. Children and adolescents are the most vulnerable and prone to break-ups in this context. This book is essential reading for those who work with these patients."

Virginia Ungar, M.D., Buenos Aires Psychoanalytic Association; IPA Past President

Book Information
ISBN 9781032663340
Author Anna Maria Nicolo
Format Paperback
Page Count 274
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 540g