Treating the Other Third and Selected Dilemmas of Adolescent Development

As “evidence-based research” on psychodynamic psychotherapy for children and adolescents gains momentum, it seems to be following adult psychiatry in moving increasingly toward biomedical/genetic efforts to understand and treat psychopathology. In this process, the clinical developmental model, which traces development and much psychopathology to the interaction between children’s endowment and environment is being brushed aside in favor of genetic, biochemical and epidemiological efforts despite modest gains of clinical relevance to date from those approaches. As such, a single case study continues to have an important place in identifying increasingly accurate clinical paradigms for understanding the development of psychopathology, which in turn leads toward developing more successful therapy. To this end, Treating the Other Third refers to that sizable minority of adolescent patients who fail to respond or refuse psychotropic medication.