Introduction

Like other authors and editors who have contributed to the Independent Psychoanalytic Approaches with Children and Adolescents series before us, we often turn to one of Winnicott’s most resonant passages from ‘The aims of psychoanalytical treatment’ (1962): I enjoy myself doing analysis and I always look forward to the end of each analysis. Analysis for analysis’ sake has no meaning for me. I do analysis because that is what the patient needs to have done and to have done with. If the patient does not need analysis then I do something else. ( Winnicott, 1962/1965 , p. 166) In working with adolescents in crisis, the paradox of ‘doing something else’ – or, in truth, ‘doing (at least) two things at once’ – becomes central. The urgency of a crisis and the distress it can cause both the adolescent and adults around them add immediate pressure, while our task of holding meaning and sustaining a therapeutic atmosphere – a space where meaningful conversations can happen, where we can think rather than react – remains.