Casework Treatment of Adolescents with Learning Inhibitions.

This article presents information on the casework treatment of adolescents with learning inhibitions. According to the author, for many school learning, like living, is an anxious, precarious process. Strong deterrents to learning may be derived from many sources. Sexual conflicts and fantasies can interfere with the adolescent's ability to study. An adolescent whose childhood curiosity was mishandled may develop learning difficulties in special subjects; for example, science and biology can be threatening to the youngster who is struggling against allowing the emergence of repressed childhood curiosity about the creation of life and bodily functions. Children whose narcissism has been overly fed in childhood and those who were reared in overly permissive environments may, in adolescence, be unable to tolerate the tensions of competition with peers, striving toward mastery of knowledge, and postponement of immediate gratification, and withdrawal from learning may occur. Some children are proficient only under teachers who show a special liking for and interest in them, doing poorly under indifferent teachers.