Originally published in 1981, this study is the outcome of a clinical workshop based in the Adolescent Department at the Tavistock Clinic; its members at the time shared a tradition and interest in applying psychoanalytic principles to the understanding of groups and institutions and believed in the crucial relevance of these in work with families. It is written with the general reader in mind as well as those who work specifically in the field of family therapy or psychoanalysis. The approach is based on two particular developments; that of Object Relations Psychoanalytic practice, derived especially from the work of Freud and Melanie Klein; and the application of this to the understanding of Group Relations following the work of W.R. Bion and others, such as A.K. Rice and Pierre Turquet. It thus embraces the idea of the family as a system and includes attempts to understand the processes involved in such a system. But, unlike other comparable approaches, this one implies working with the group dynamics of the family, especially in terms of the way the family members perceive and engage the therapists. The attempt is to create a space for the family to relive and think about conflicts as they emerge in the therapeutic setting. Analytic theory is matched by much clinical material, and a glossary defines the key concepts.

Originally published in 1981, this study is the outcome of a clinical workshop based in the Adolescent Department at the Tavistock Clinic; its members at the time shared a tradition and interest in applying psychoanalytic principles to the understanding of groups and institutions and believed in the crucial relevance of these in work with families. It is written with the general reader in mind as well as those who work specifically in the field of family therapy or psychoanalysis. The approach is based on two particular developments; that of Object Relations Psychoanalytic practice, derived especially from the work of Freud and Melanie Klein; and the application of this to the understanding of Group Relations following the work of W.R. Bion and others, such as A.K. Rice and Pierre Turquet. It thus embraces the idea of the family as a system and includes attempts to understand the processes involved in such a system. But, unlike other comparable approaches, this one implies working with the group dynamics of the family, especially in terms of the way the family members perceive and engage the therapists. The attempt is to create a space for the family to relive and think about conflicts as they emerge in the therapeutic setting. Analytic theory is matched by much clinical material, and a glossary defines the key concepts.

Literature and psychoanalysis are different media for exploring the world of the mind, and in this finely crafted book Beta Copley gives equal weight to literary, psychotherapeutic and social perspectives on adolescence. Inspired by the writings of Klein, Bion and Meltzer on groups and on mental states, she is also mindful of the problems associated with treating literary works as case histories. She addresses three celebrated literary works with adolescence in mind: Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado about Nothing and Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. For the reader these will evoke their own memories of love, conflict and growing up, and set the stage for the clinical material in the second half of the book. She also returns to the oft-studied theme of adolescent development and the social framework; and gives rich examples of problems of young people in areas such as leaving home, developing sexuality, and social conflict. These will illuminate not only the therapeutic work itself, but something of the basic struggles of adolescence itself. Beta Copley illustrates the core approach of intensive one-to-one work with adolescents. This is neither widely available nor always appropriate. She looks at other forms of intervention derived from it, which may also be of inestimable benefit for young people in need.