Page - 3 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

Introduction 3 Today, the adolescent phase is viewed to be equally as important as the first three years of life, since in both phases essential aspects of the personality are formed, giving rise to a coherent, stable self. The difference among individual adolescents can be enormous: whereas in earlier phases development centers on more general tendencies, in adolescence individual characteristics come into relief, widening the divergence from one adolescent to another. We will seek first to describe the emotional cathexis (emotional investment) of the body as body ego, then the development of feeling, psychosexuality and think- ing. These various aspects cannot be separated from one another, but considera- tion of them all should sharpen our view of each, even though they are interwoven as in a musical score: only together can they yield a sonic experience, as it were – the understanding of this phase of life.