Page - 140 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

140 The search for the self – identity and deeper -lying causes are not investigated. Teachers and counselors must then take up this communication and speak with the adolescent. The adolescent’s true problems are with his sexual orientation and are latent. Therefore, an important consideration is how much autonomy an adolescent can be allowed and to what extent adults should and must help him in such important decisions. 5.6 Significance of the group In the adolescent’s insecurity, loosening of family relations, confusing feelings regarding the self, parents and the world, his peer group constitutes an important reference point. The adolescent’s group of friends becomes his new homeland, where he feels he belong and shares the same interests. Every member of the group is more or less in the same situation regarding their changing bodies and new attitudes toward the world. The group fulfills various functions and tasks, representing a more or less secure place where adolescents can live out parts of their personality or project aspects of their personality onto other group members. Usually, this involves behavior that the adolescent cannot yet integrate, instead trying it out while observing others. Discussing other group members (and other groups) is a favorite topic. Even when adolescents reject parental authority, they are simultaneously sub- jecting themselves to the dictatorship of their peer group with regard to clothes, taste in music, communication and leisure activities. Recognition and status within the group becomes a central issue, with treachery and loyalty also important. The need to belong and retain status within the group can lead to great pressure: some member usually feels excluded. In this phase, adolescents often denigrate not only their parents but their teach- ers as well. One young teacher described his experiences: From regarding me as “God” in the first year, to thinking the “world” of me in the second, in the third everything I did was wrong and despicable. It was not until the fourth year that I became accepted again as a friend and teacher for whom they seemed to have some respect. (Waddell 1994, 48) The teacher’s surprise at his new, demoted image among his adolescent students is evident. From his brief description, we can feel how difficult and painful it is to endure this fall from a (presumably) earlier idealized state; here, his reaction is similar to a parent’s. Only slowly does the adolescent begin to distance and liberate himself from the group, when a close relationship to one other person gives him the requisite feel- ing of security. Lari describes this process at the age of 17: Yesterday, we started at Klaus’ house. Max, Sabine, Manfred, Tom and I went over to the pizzeria after 1:00 a.m. The rest of them went to Vienna; I didn’t