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For over 20 years, Offer and his associates have been engaged in the systematic study of the psychological development of normal adolescents. Their findings, along with those of a number of other investigators such as M. Rutter, G. E. Vaillant and J. Adelson, have set in train a substantial reconsideration of traditional views, in particular those derived primarily from clinical observation.
The present volume adds a further dimension to the work reported in such books as The Psychological World of the Teenager and From Teenage to Young Manhood. It presents the analysis of responses of adolescents of both sexes and from a number of environmental settings to a self-assessment instrument (The Offer Self-Image Questionnaire), devised to tap the subjects' views of their own personalities and "coping" capacities. Data were obtained not only from the modal suburban Chicago public school youth of previous studies, but also from parochial and Eastern private-school students, incarcerated delinquents, psychiatric patients, and adolescents hospitalized for physical illness. In addition, "normal" young people in Ireland, New Zealand, and Israel were included among the subjects of this study.
Briefly put, the results tend to support the previously reported findings that strongly challenge the traditional psychoanalyitic view