Abstract
Intensive psychotherapy with adolescents requires, first of all, a therapist with extensive training in child, adult, and family psychotherapy. The therapist must be imaginative, flexible, and mature in judgement. Versatility in the use of therapeutic techniques allows variation in keeping with the psychological needs of the patient. Therapy of the adolescent must be as changeable as the adolescent himself, but always based upon sound psychoanalytic principles.
Anna Freud (2) has stated that, “The role of the therapist is to keep him [the patient] from getting sicker while he is growing up.” It is also the therapist's role to help the adolescent to grow out of his childhood, not to free him from it. With all of this, and a little luck, the therapist can play an exciting role in the ‘all O.K.’ termination of adolescent therapy.