Adolescent Individuation: The Culmination of A Developmental Line

The following discussion will focus on the application of the concept of individuation to normal adolescence. Mahler (1975) has defined individuation as the developmental process that witnesses the evolution of intrapsychic autonomy and the expansion of autonomous ego functions. It is contended that this concept may be viably utilized as a supraordinate term that provides a developmentally coherent means of conceptualizing and integrating various aspects of adolescent development, particularly in regard to the status of the adolescent's internalized object relationships and the process of identity formation. Individuation will be conceptualized in terms of Anna Freud's (1965) notion of a developmental line which traces the individual's gradual outgrowing of a state of dependency to an increasing mastery of his internal and external world. In this view, individuation is seen as a progressive developmental phenomenon that witnesses increased secondary autonomy of ego functions in relation to drives, and, concurrently, increased individual autonomy in relation to other persons (Settlage, 1973). Application of the concept of individuation to normal adolescence necessitates that the subsequent discussion attend to four major areas: first, the traditional psychoanalytic view of adolescence; second, individuation as a concept that is pertinent to adolescence; third, the specific concept of the emergence of apparatuses of primary autonomy during adolescence; and finally, the concept of adolescent identity formation as a phenomenon interrelated with individuation and the representational world.