The reforms at the turn of the century that represented increased consciousness of the social, educational, and legal needs of children and adolescents led to the founding of the Juvenile Psychopathic Institute in Chicago in 1909. In 1915, Healy published a landmark work, 'The Individual Delinquent,' which documented in detail the disorganized, traumatic family background, educational and physical handicaps, and 'warped' attitudes characterizing adolescent delinquents. In the 1920's Healy and Aichhorn were focusing on the use of psychoanalysis for delinquent youth. Efforts expanded in subsequent years, although at least one project, the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study, did not actually provide psychotherapy. Glover, Klein, Friedlander, and Anna Freud were all major contributors to this evolving field during this period. Individual case reports from Crocker, and Eckstein and Friedman provided detailed accounts of therapeutic technique. During and since the 1950's, increasingly sophisticated studies have been published. Rinsley and Masterson made major contributions to the understanding of borderline adolescents with borderline character pathology. The need for inpatient treatment for more severely disturbed adolescents, the acting-out mechanism as a critical component in each violent adolescent, and the beneficial effects of treatment for many adolescents have been some of the common themes in the literature. Three notes and 54 references are listed.