The psychoanalytic study of student dissent adds to the understanding we have gained from sociologic, political, and educational inquiries. Many apparently rebellious college youths are acting on deeply felt moral convictions which were learned from their parents. Their behavior is sanctioned by their superegos and syntonic with their ego ideals, reflecting obedience far more than defiance. The interesting question is why this pattern was not more common in the past, and what shifts in our social structure and patterns of child rearing have led to a younger generation whose overt action is far more consistent with its thoughts and feelings than has been true in prior decades.

Both student and adult behavior serve to express unconscious conflicts. Facile explanations which see student rebellions as reflecting failure to resolve oedipal complexes, without discussing adult response in similar terms, are biased and unscientific. The distress and anxiety which student protests have elicited from the adult world can also be explored from a psychoanalytic point of view.