Page - 143 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

The search for the self – identity 143 limits are transgressed or where the adolescent’s life can be endangered, often become rituals of membership. In this case, we speak of gangs. 5.7 Gangs We speak of gangs or criminal groups when good aspects of a group are not at the forefront but instead tyranny and submission, rebellion and criminality. An unconscious motive for joining a gang is to express the destructive aspects of the personality, something that leads its members into deeper difficulties. Enormous pressure arises to do things that the individual member has not yet done on his own. There is also a basic climate of fear, with the leaders projecting their fear- fulness and insecurity onto the members they oppress. They were often treated brutally as children, humiliated and dominated, and now take on the opposite role of power. It is difficult for an individual to break away from this kind of constella- tion, since the gang also supplies a strong feeling of membership and family. The members often come from problem families where nobody cared for the children or where exceedingly strict rules applied, and they were not recognized as per- sons. Gangs often represent societal sub -groups. Loners and lonely youths are invited to participate. Jack tells of his first contact to a gang: “I couldn’t count on friends for anything but trouble,” said Jack, looking back to how he was “seduced” into his thirteen -year -old gang. “I started hanging around with this group . . . one of them had come up to me and said, ‘You’re cool, we like your looks’ and I just felt good for the first time and appreciated and wanted to be friends. But they started doing things I didn’t really want to do – like bunking off school and skipping homework and I found myself going along with it even though I felt it wasn’t me.” (Waddell 1994, 50) When invited to join the gang, Jack clearly did not have a good feeling about it – he was shy and had low self -esteem. The leader’s “tough” character traits impressed him, and he felt part of the group, perceiving them as a home. He could then identify with the strong leader and tyrannize others, or become a victim within the group. For parents, it is important to pay attention to their child’s development and inquire who their friends are in their peer group. It is helpful when parents con- tact other parents of group members and exchange impressions and experiences. When examining their children’s problems, parents feel powerful emotions such as anger, shame, disappointment and guilt. It is often surprising how long par- ents overlook unambiguous signs of drug consumption, violence and anguish in their children so as not to be confronted with such painful feelings. Although the gang massively influences individual behavior, it is important to recognize what is communicated through criminal acts or unusual behavior and to understand the adolescent’s situation. “Understanding” need not signify tolerance of a given