DEPRESSION AND THE DEPRESSIVE POSITION IN AN ADOLESCENT BOY

Summary

This paper presents the psychoanalytic treatment of a fifteen-and-a-half-year-old boy who had been in analysis for approximately three and a half years. Martha Harris focuses particularly on a vivid dream reported by the boy and uses it to explore his struggle with depression, emotional conflict, and feelings of guilt.

Harris examines the boy’s difficulty in accepting conflicting feelings toward his internal and external objects. She relates his depressive state to the depressive position, understood as a more integrated psychological state in which the individual can recognize both loving and hostile feelings toward the same person and take responsibility for them. The paper shows how working through ambivalence and guilt can help an adolescent move away from emotional withdrawal and develop a greater capacity for integration and emotional maturity.