You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
THE PROCESSES THAT GOVERN CHANGE in adolescence form a complex pattern combining psychological, social and maturational factors. In this paper, case material will be presented to illustrate three aspects of adolescent development and their interrelationships: how the adolescent comes to grip with his identifications, how his experience of himself in the work gains in importance, and how he comes to reorganize his aggression as a necessary correlate of relinquishing juvenile forms of dependency. The fate of each of these developmental tasks depends to some extent on the other two, though change may occur in one area in advance of, or well behind, corresponding change in another.
In the adolescent's search for a sense of direction, his parents gradually move into the background and he learns to rely more on himself and thus begins to realize his own strength. The adolescent who has not been prepared to assume responsibility may assert himself through rebellion. Or else he may put the blame for his failings on his parents and thus fail to see his own role in his difficulties. By reproaching his parents for, in effect, not having been ideal parents, he makes them responsible not only for the past, but also for the present.
Much of this happens internally and the adolescent is only partly aware of it. In the process we describe, the adolescent comes to terms with the problem of identification: thus, he learns to make choices and to deal with super-ego commands in such a fashion that they no longer are the orders of an irrational authority within him which is resented but must be obeyed. He must learn to decide which