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The chief aim of this study is to deal with the psychological forces that motivate the group formations of adolescents, which are so impressive in their variety, yet—as observation seems to show—stem from the same dynamic forces as more commonly known activities of a directly individual character.
This makes it advisable for us to turn our attention to those individual expressions, typical as they are of adolescence, before discussing the psychological forces that are operative in group formations. For this purpose, I shall use clinical experiences that I have gained during the course of the psychoanalytic treatment of adolescent patients.
One case that I have analyzed provides me with the opportunity to discuss at this point two basic problems of adolescence:
the conflict between reality and fantasy—that is, between external and internal reality—and the ways in which the adolescent tries to solve that conflict; and
the balance between narcissism and object relationship, and how it is maintained.
The patient I speak of first came to analysis as a seventeen-year-old boy. He had a variety of symptoms; to him, however,