This book containing a series of Donald Meltzer's clinical supervisions with the Racker Group of Venice focuses on adolescence and adolescent states of mind. Meltzer wrote:



'The discussions are all descriptive and phenomenological and do not aspire to theory or a thorough list of current literature. The audience is urged to participate with questions and ideas. The result seems always to be interesting, often fun, and the atmosphere devoid of competition. The person who presents a case, often after a nervous start, is quite satisfied and, I believe I can say, finishes without ever feeling humiliated.



'The Racker Group is one of thirty similar work groups which came into being spontaneously in twenty different countries and which have attained complete autonomy. I like to consider these as, taken together, a flexible counter-institution whose atelier style is faithful to its founding inspiration, Socrates and the School of Athens.' (D. Meltzer, introduction to the Italian edition)



Maria Elena Petrilli is a clinical psychologist who graduated in psychology at Rosario, Argentina. She lives and works in Venice as a psychotherapist and consultant for Public Health Services. In 1986, together with Hugo Màrquez and Mauro Rossetti, she founded the Racker Study Group, an association of psychotherapists from various fields of specialisation, in order to explore object relations theory in depth in the transference–countertransference. She has chaired numerous seminars with different authors, among which Dr Meltzer was a regular invited speaker for more than fifteen years.



Hugo Màrquez is a psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist. He started his career in Rosario, Argentina, and after moving to Italy completed his psychotherapy training in Padua. In 1986, together with Mauro Rossetti and Maria Elena Petrilli, he founded the Racker Study Group which organises seminars and training courses for psychologists and therapists working in social-psychological institutions in the Veneto region. He has worked with Meltzer since 1988 and together with Mauro Rossetti edited Lavorando con Meltzer – Clinica del Claustrum (1998). He lives and works in Venice as a psychotherapist and trains younger therapists.



Mauro Rossetti (BSc Rosario, Argentina) did clinical training at Scuola Pichon, Buenos Aires, and is now a psychotherapist in Venice. In 1973 he became a consultant for the Regional Centre for Drug Addiction; he is a supervisor for the Street Educators Service of Venice and for family consultation in Verona. He is a co-founder of the Racker Study Group of Venice and regularly attended Dr Meltzer's seminars and supervisions. He organises study groups on object relations theory and is co-editor of various books on Dr Meltzer's clinical work, and editor of Mito, mistica e filosofia nel pensiero di Bion (Myth, Mystique and Philosophy in Bion's Thinking) (Cafoscarina Press, 2008).



Foreword: the Racker Group of Venice



Hugo Màrquez and Maria Elena Petrilli



Introduction: working with adolescents



Maria Elena Petrilli



1. 'Tender your dreams in a tent': a workshop for 11–14 year olds



Monique Pistolato



2. Not only homework: street educators of Venice



Margherita Furlanetto and Monica Longhi, in collaboration with Maria Elena Petrilli



3. Avoiding the Oedipus complex



Giuseppina Pavan



4. A potential terrorist: the conflict with anti-life forces



Elena Pianezzola



5. Between aridity and hope



Annamaria Mariuccia



6. Hysteria today



Hugo Màrquez



7. An egocentric adolescent



Mauro Rossetti



8. Sleeping at his mother's breast: in the style of Oblomov



Hugo Màrquez



9. A case of transvestism



Valeria Mozzon



10. A boy with a gentle heart: inside and outside the father's head



Rudolfo Picciulin



11. On negative transference



Donald Meltzer



12. Current considerations on autism



Donald Meltzer



Index