Table Of ContentROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS:
ADOLESCENCE
Volume 6
ADOLESCENCE AND BREAKDOWN
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ADOLESCENCE AND BREAKDOWN
Edited by
SIMON MEYERSON
Firstpublishedin1975byGeorgeAllen&Unwin(Publishers)Ltd
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ADOLESCENCE
AND
BREAKDOWN
edited by
Simon Meyerson
Foreword by
Robert Gosling
London
GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN
Boston Sydney
© George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd, 1975
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction
without permission. All rights reserved.
George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd,
40 Museum Street, London WC1A1LU, UK
George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd,
Park Lane, Hemel Hempstead, Herts HP2 4TE, UK
Allen & Unwin Inc.,
9 Winchester Terrace, Winchester, Mass 01890, USA
George Allen & Unwin Australia Pty Ltd,
8 Napier Street, North Sydney, NSW 2060, Australia
First published in 1975
Second impression 1981
ISBN 0 04 150053 9 hardback
0 04 150054 7 paperback
Printed in Great Britain by
Biddles Ltd, Guildford, Surrey
Dedicated to
my seven brothers and sisters
to my neighbourhood slum-kids of all characters, creeds
and colours who shared their adolescence with mine.
And to Adolescents the world over
who never fail to enrich me
with the bewilderment and magic
of their adolescence.
FOREWORD
In Adolescence an attempt has been made to describe some
of the salient features of the adolescent and his world.
Erikson1 has identified the central psychological challenge of
the adolescent as the development and maintenance of fideli-
ty. In so far as this is a never-ending challenge, although it
may later be overshadowed by other psychological demands,
it remains a hazard and liable to disruption. To the extent
that this is so, breakdowns of one sort or another in later life
may well be little different in their main features from disturb-
ances encountered in adolescence. Of course such breakdown
will look very different because of intervening biological
maturation, psychological learning and elaboration, and
changes in social circumstances. But if a failure in faithful-
ness, whether to people or ideals, is what has taken place, it
will be the anguish that is peculiar to adolescence that
recurs.
Obviously developmental achievements prior to adoles-
cence may also be lost temporarily in later breakdowns.
Erikson describes these as the achievements of coherence in
being, of the capacity for hope, trust and confidence, of the
ability to assert will and purpose and the achievement of
competence. Any of these achievements, if none too well
established, will be the first to go under stressful experiences
in later life. The loss of some of them may well be the
leading feature of a disturbance of development during
adolescence as it may in later episodes. But to the extent that
the newly developing capacity for fidelity is what is at
hazard, the troubled times of an adolescent are special.
When the pains of the adolescent or of his environment
exceed a certain point the helping professions are sometimes
mobilised. Some sort of breakdown has occurred. In Adoles-
cence and Breakdown Simon Meyerson has assembled the
deliberations of a number of his colleagues who have been so
Foreword
used. They inevitably give a rather lugubrious or frightening
picture of adolescent experience and by the nature of their
preoccupation talk little about all that is well. A less one-
sided picture is presented by many of the same authors in
Adolescence.2 But here they tell us about how things can go
wrong, when this has happened, various kinds of help can be
offered.
Such studies can in the tradition of much clinical
investigation indicate to us what the developmental pro-
cesses are that have failed or come to grief. Knowledge about
development is thereby increased and more rational
measures for intervening suggested. But in addition, those
chiefly concerned with breakdowns in later life may learn a
lot just by being shown some processes in purer culture than
they are ever likely to see.
Robert Gosling
Tavistock Clinic
April 1974
REFERENCES
1. E. H. Erikson, Insight and Responsibility (London, Faber, 1964).
2. The companion volume Adolescence: The Crises of Adjustment
is referred to as Adolescence throughout this book for the sake
of brevity.
