21st February 2026 Lecture

The adolescence conundrum: reflections on the interminability of a state of mind - Francesco Bisagni

To be held online from 10.00am to 12.30pm on Saturday 21st February 2026, by Zoom. Attendance is free of charge for all FPC members and will count as 2 hours CPD. The lecture will not be recorded. To book a place please email admin@thefpc.org.uk 

The first part of this paper offers an overview of the historical development of the courses on adolescence provided by the Society of Analytical Psychology over more than a decade. Following the closure of the SAP Child Analytic Training in 2006, and the gradual decline in the number of child-trained analysts within the Society, numerous initiatives – including seminars, as well as theoretical and clinical presentations and Infant Observation courses – have been undertaken in an effort to preserve the spirit of the London Child and Adolescence analytic tradition. This tradition is rooted in the theoretical and clinical work of the Society’s founder, Michael Fordham, and is characterised by the distinctive cross-fertilization of Jungian, Kleinian, Winnicottian and Bionian psychoanalytic schools. Such an approach is unique within the international Jungian community and has made a significant contribution to the development of the British Association of Child Psychotherapists. It was due to the determination, clinical expertise and theoretical depth of Alessandra Cavalli – one of the last Child-trained analysts of the SAP – that a focused body of work on adolescence began to take a more structured form. Upon joining the SAP, following my Jungian training in Italy, my supervisions with Michael Fordham and Rosemary Gordon, and the completion of the Tavistock child training, Alessandra and I initiated the first dedicated course on adolescence. Entitled the ‘Transition Course’, it was a one-year programme comprising monthly theoretical presentations and group supervisions, specifically addressing the transition from late adolescence to young adulthood. The course was very well received over the years. After Alessandra’s sad passing in 2020, I felt compelled to continue and expand our shared project. The Transition Course subsequently evolved into a more structured two-year Diploma Course in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy with adolescents and young adults, which has now become a three-year programme, offering more in-depth theoretical study and more rigorous clinical requirements. Students find the Diploma Course highly rewarding, not least because of the frequent participation of international students - a notable benefit of online delivery.

In the first part of the paper, I shall present examples of our programmes, with the intention of illustrating the richness of our offerings.

The second part of my presentation is more explicitly theoretical. I shall outline the principal lines of thought, theories, and models of the mind, as well as the technical approaches pertinent to adolescence. Adolescence will be examined not only as a chronological stage – from a developmental perspective, distinguishing features of puberty, mid and late adolescence, and young adulthood – but also as a ‘state of mind’. Adolescence, as a state of mind, is interminable and persists throughout our lives. This is, of course, highly relevant for analysts and psychodynamic psychotherapists who work with adult patients. This section of my presentation succinctly follows the content of the initial ‘foundation seminars’ delivered in our courses and offers reflections on significant contributions from post-Freudian, post-Kleinian, Winnicottian and post-Jungian authors. Adolescence, both as a developmental stage and as an anthropological phenomenon, has undergone profound changes in Western societies over recent decades, and the definition of adolescence as a state of mind is not what it was even a few years ago. This evolution affects our understanding of adulthood and certainly demands that therapists and analysts remain able to interpret the world ‘in real time’, maintaining both our capacity for thinking and our technical skills in a state of perpetual openness to the unknown, the often undecipherable, and the almost invariably uncanny.

Francesco Bisagni is a psychiatrist, a Jungian analyst and a child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapist. He is a training and supervising analyst of the Society of Analytical Psychology, he is the convenor of the three-year SAP Diploma Course in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy with adolescents and young adults, and seminar leader of the SAP Infant Observation courses. He has extensively taught and lectured in the UK, the US, Europe and Russia. He has published articles in the major psychoanalytic journals and has published, edited and co-edited books with a prevalently clinical-oriented focus, drawing on the theories of Jung, Fordham and Bion. He has been practicing as a child and adult analyst for more than four decades, in Milan, Italy.