Adolescence can be viewed from a certain perspective as a place where we have been and which we have passed through during a phase of our lives. We are still trying to understand what happened at the time. We have seen the four “communities” within which the adolescent moves: the adolescent community; the family and the parents; the isolated adolescent; how the adolescent feels about the adult world which he desires to enter; and the continuous movement between these communities. As I have said, the individual usually moves between these four communities and eventually finds the path which proves to be the way out. I will now try to describe the psychopathological characteristics of an adolescent representative of each these four communities, bearing in mind the risk that he or she runs of remaining in a fixed position and not being able to emerge from it.

First I shall consider the adolescent who tries to remain within the family; then the adolescent who tries to make a rapid entry