PsyTx.com
Adolescence:
Characteristics
Challenges
Theory of Development
Session 1: Characteristics
Jeffery Smith, MD
1/5/2009: Session 1 of 7: Synopsis--
Reading: Adolescent Development, Psychopathology and Treatment, H Spencer Bloch, MD. IUP, Madison, CT, 1995, paperback 2007.
Characteristics: Strong feelings, withdrawal from parents, engagement with peers, burst of creativity, forward moves and regressions.
Challenges of adolescence:
1. Dealing with drastic changes in body, sexuality, [cognitive abilities, power and capability in general]
2. Extreme emotions: Love, shame, hate, disgust, pity, affection.
3. Letting go of former child role representing: Safety, comfort, confinement, lack of power, choice, independence.
4. Defining future role: Will I be good enough, where will I fit in? Will I be loved, esteemed, for what?
5. Defining and taking ownership of personal values and goals.
6. Developing personal experience and abilities, relationships.
7. Defining future relationships and feelings about family.
8. Things going on in family and life that you may not be told about.
9. Parents who are ambivalent about the process and the individuals involved.
10. Difficulty knowing who to trust for knowledge and understanding. Perhaps only later are kids able to trust older, wiser mentors.
Overall, it is no wonder this tends to be a difficult time. The challenges are enormous and the available resources very modest.
Theory of Development: What makes adolescents withdraw from parents, move towards peers and experience the kinds of feelings they do?
Traditional Freudian: Advent of adult sexuality brings incestuous wishes against which the young person defends by distancing. Cathexis withdrawn from parents is directed towards self.
Piaget: Ability to think abstractly propels exploration.
Bloch: Innate drive to develop causes yearning for past and guilt about moving away, but strong need to explore and grow in spite of ambivalence.