Once again, the concept that serious turmoil is the norm in adolescent development is reviewed and challenged. Oldham reviews briefly and succinctly: 1) the literature (e.g., Anna Freud, Spiegel, Fountain, Josselyn) suggesting that disruption of psychic equilibrium resulting in overt signs of turmoil is normal in adolescence; 2) the literature (e.g., Dovan and Adelson, Offer, Masterson) surveying nonpatient adolescent groups, suggesting that adolescents normally maintain psychic equilibrium with only mild and transient anxiety, depression, and minor disagreements with family; and 3) those factors in our profession and in society which serve to maintain what he terms "the myth" of the normality of severe adolescent turmoil, in the face of much evidence to the contrary.