Psychodynamic Approach to Understanding Juvenile Criminality (From Juvenile Psychiatry and the Law, P 45-63, 1989, Richard Rosner and Harold I Schwartz, eds. -- See NCJ-119142)

• NCJ Number: 119146
• Author(s): R C Marohn
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 19 pages
• Sale Source: Plenum Press
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

An understanding of the psychodynamics of juvenile violence and criminality can form the basis of psychotherapy in both inpatient and outpatient settings, although more and more adolescent delinquents are moving into adulthood with unresolved and untreated psychopathology.

Abstract

Freud, Aichhorn, Alexander, Friedlander, and many others have examined the psychodynamics of violent behavior. Current models rest on models that focus on underlying drives and conflicts. Treatment of adolescents should recognize that adolescents generally show their disturbances in their external behavior rather than solely through traditional psychiatric symptoms like psychosis and depression. Interventions should rest on a differential diagnostic assessment, preferably conducted by a multidisciplinary team through observations of the adolsecent on the living unit of the treatment center. Violence is a common problem in working with behaviorally disordered adolescents, and limit setting is an important aspect of hospital treatment. The residential treatment should aim to convert acting-out behavior into some kind of internalized experience. The therapist functions as a real person facilitating developmental change. However, efforts to treat these adolescents effectively, particularly in public settings, can be hampered by inadequate insurance coverage and lack of financial support or professional status for psychiatrists. As a result, much more needs to be accomplished in the treatment of delinquents. 41 references.