Adolescents differ from adults in many ways. We may select five characteristics not commonly prominent in adults but often seen in adolescents, at least those of a certain social class. They are among the qualities that make adolescence seem so strange to us, so compounded of extremes, so curiously unrealistic. Taken together, these qualities add up to impairment of synthetic function of the ego, reversion to domination by the pleasure principle, and a defect in contact with the outside world. The five qualities can be explained as due to increased narcissistic cathexis and regression to earlier stages of development. The present discussion, however, is confined to other factors that help to account for them.

The intensity and changeableness of adolescent feeling, and the seeking after it, are in part caused by the newness of the instinctual forces, the inexperience of the ego in using its resources, and the importance of emotional encounters if the ego is to acquire greater efficiency.