The Parent in the Corridor – Thoughts on Treating Parents and Adolescents

Throughout childhood, but especially in adolescence, parents play a pivotal role in shaping their child's personality and when they face developmental difficulties. This in turn, makes the parents an integral part of their adolescent child's psychological treatment. As part of the adolescent's growth process, changes in the relationship between parent and adolescent are required. Thus, the adolescent constructs their parents as parents of an adolescent and the parents, in a process of "general rehearsal," assist their child in getting through adolescence while perceiving them as a future adult. In this intersubjective process, the parents' ability to tolerate ambiguity and "becoming" is critical and significant. This paper explores this intersubjective process, following Ogden's conceptualization of the parent as an oedipal transitional object. The parent recognizes the complexity of this developmental stage, and at the same time, views the adolescent as the adult they will become without pressuring their child into adopting "false solutions." To enable this, it is important that the parents be part of their child's therapeutic process.