Developmental Ruptures

Anna Maria Nicolò, MD, child neuropsychiatrist, Training Analyst and Full Member of the Società 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.

“In this fascinating volume, Anna Nicolò 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 Nicolò 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 Société Européenne 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

• Preface to the English edition IntroductionPART 1 The adolescent and developmental ruptures 1 The adolescent mind 2 The problem of assessment in adolescence 3 Breakdown and developmental ruptures4 The negated, repudiated, persecutory body 5 Sensoriality and developmental ruptures 6 Fear of breakdown and beyond 7 Developmental ruptures: A transformative pathway 8 Pathological transpersonal links and adolescent breakdown PART 2 The defence against developmental breakdown 9 Perverse solutions and perversion 10 Daydreams and their evolutions 11 Martina: Alienation in the other 12 Violence as a defence against breakdown 13 Delusion, secrets and reciprocity 14 The transgender enigma 15 Self-harm and cutting