A reexamination of Peter Blos's concept of prolonged adolescence

Adolescent Psychiatry, 1999 by Marohn, Richard C

The three fundamentals of psychoanalytic theory regarding adolescent development are (a) Sigmund Freud's (1905) idea of the displacement of genitality as a result of an increase in the intensity of the libidinal drive and an urgent need to defend against the incest taboo, (b) Anna Freud's (1958) description of "adolescent turmoil" and her emphasis on the loosening of infantile incestuous libidinal object ties through utilization of a variety of typical adolescent defenses, and (c) Peter Blos's concept of adolescence as a second individuation process (1967) and his theory of adolescence as a recapitulation of the oedipal period (1979).

However, despite this formidable foundation and significant modern additions and elaborations, adolescence as a developmental phase remains relatively neglected in psychoanalytic theory (A. Freud, 1958). Case reports of psychoanalytic treatment conducted in adulthood typically omit reconstructions of adolescence (Eissler, 1958). Some have attributed the genesis of the problem to the nature of adolescence itself and to the "threat" its revival presents to both analyst and analysand (e.g., Goettsche, 1986). No matter what challenges adolescent experiences and affects present to analytic technique, if analysts continue to miss the powerful impact adolescence has on the development of personality and of pathological symptoms (Beiser, 1984, p. 11), it behooves us to recognize and consider the problem.

Psychoanalytic theory has remained fascinated with the Oedipus complex because of Freud's pioneering discoveries and formulations. His emphasis on making the unconscious conscious and on recovering repressed childhood memories led most psychoanalytic work to focus on early childhood. However, recent reformulations of psychoanalytic theory derived from an increased emphasis on the data of infant observation and on the findings of self psychology have enabled us to view the developmental process differently and thus provide us with a new perspective from which to view adolescence.

My focus here is on the concept of "prolonged adolescence." This notion-of a particular kind of adolescent pathology-is based on the classical view of adolescence as a reworking of the oedipal period. It is my view that placing the Oedipus complex at the center of adolescence-continuing to see the relational shifts of the period as primarily related to the Oedipus complex-skews our understanding of adolescence in the lives of all our patients. I believe it causes us to see certain young adults as sick, and it blinds us to the healthy aspects of our patients. I hope to advance the idea that a view of adolescence based on self-psychological understandings avoids the pitfalls associated with the theory of prolonged adolescence and allows an enhanced understanding of adolescent and adult patients.

Prolonged Adolescence

Prolonged adolescence' was first described by Siegfried Bernfeld (1923) in a presentation to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society on February 15, 1922.2 Bernfeld sketched a group of male adolescents whose psychical desire for an object extended beyond the physiological process of genital drive. He described certain characteristics and distinguished "this complex . . from the definition of puberty as given by Freud" (in Jones, 1925, p. 478).

These youths become preoccupied with ideals and aesthetics; they become painfully depressed trying to produce a work of art, a new form of politics, or some similar humanistic endeavor; and, further, in these youths, "the sexual components do not concentrate on finding an object, a great part is turned into ego-libido, creating thus a new (secondary) narcissistic situation" (Bernfeld, in Jones, 1925, pp. 477478). Bernfeld referred several times to these characteristics as adolescent narcissistic transformations that cannot be reduced to archaic fixations or regressions, and he did not characterize those youths as disturbed.

When Peter Blos (1979)3 wrote about "prolonged male adolescence," he noted that Bernfeld had investigated the "social phenomenon observed in European youth movements after the First World War" (p. 38). Blos continued, "Members of these groups presented a strong predilection for intellectualization and sexual repression, thus delaying the resolution of the adolescent conflict, and in consequence, the personality consolidation of late adolescence (p. 38)."4,5

In a commentary, Anna Freud (1958) summarized Bernfeld's "protracted type" of male adolescence as follows: "[It] extends far beyond the time limit normal for adolescent characteristics, and is conspicuous by tendencies toward productivity whether artistic, literary or scientific, and by a strong bent toward idealistic aims and spiritual values" (p. 257); and she continued, "Bernfeld accounted in this manner for the elaborations of the normal adolescent processes by the impact of internal frustrations and external, environmental pressures" (p. 257).

For Blos (1954), the term prolonged adolescence had begun to lose specificity, and so he described his subject quite precisely: "the American middle-class young man, roughly between eighteen and twenty-two, who usually attends college or has, at any rate, some professional aspirations; this fact, more often than not, makes him financially dependent on his family during the years of early adulthood" (pp. 733-734). Blos (1979) maintained that the configuration he had described in 1954 was still valid (p. 38, footnote 1), and he added that this was so, even though the phenomenology had changed radically in the intervening 25 years (society now had dropout and alternative life styles) and despite the general acceptance of Erikson's concept of a "psychosocial moratorium."