Boy Crazy : Remembering Adolescence, Therapies and Dreams

Adults are very aware of adolescence as a distinct part of their life and seem to recollect their teenage years either as a happy time, or as an unpleasant time - a period they would rather forget.

In exploring this phenomenon, Janet Sayers highlights the revolution wrought in both sexes' psychology by adolescence, particularly by its fantasies of divided selves and loves and of 'boy crazy' grandiosity and romance.

Illustrated throughout with examples from a groundbreaking study of adolescent memories and dreams, Boy Crazy presents a fascinating account of this little-researched period of human development.

Drawing on her own work as a therapist and weaving in vignettes from fiction and film Sayers suggests that men and women chart a different path through their teenage years and differ in their responses to the sexual 'awakening' which takes place in adolescence.

She also explores to what extent the theories and findings of Freud, Jung and feminism shape our understanding of the formative effect of adolescent experiences and emotions. Boy Crazy provides a fascinating insight into the repercussions of adolesence on our adult lives and loves and will appeal to the general and specialist reader alike.