The ideas I wish to examine in this paper are based on observations made during the treatment of disturbed adolescents. Although the clinical material that I shall present is related to the pathology of these adolescents, it is normal adolescence which I am trying to understand. I shall examine (1) the role that masturbation and masturbation fantasies play in enabling the adolescent to establish the primacy of genitality; and (2) the internal factors which determine whether or not the adolescent will succeed in changing the image of his body so that this image will include his mature genitals as functioning organs.

I have often been faced with the need to decide whether some of the behavior or fantasies which adolescents reported was part of normal adolescence or whether these contained the core of their pathology. Some adolescents reported masturbation fantasies which sounded very regressive in nature, but they did not seem to interfere seriously with their social and sexual adaptation. Other adolescents