Page - 259 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

This book has described the stormy transition from childhood to adulthood, a transition set into motion by hormonal development. Every reader must have experienced these turbulences to a lesser or greater extent; some adults are still captive to their adolescent attitude, and some aspects of our personality remain “adolescent”, rebellious or non -conformist. These emotional, impulsive elements arise from the revival of early Oedipal desires containing a sexual and aggressive component – but now in a sexually mature body. I would like my book to encour- age its readers towards reflection, to afford them moments of recognition, surprise or explanations for their own earlier behavior. The overarching question is whether an adolescent son or daughter’s “crazy” behavior constitutes a necessary component of this developmental spurt or is instead an indication of a massive disturbance or pathology. Steps in adolescent develop- ment that lead to greater independence demand a difficult balancing act from par- ents: they must “let go” without breaking their ties to the adolescent. In my book I have described this “normal drama” with its extreme emotional vacillations – a “normality in crisis” – both theoretically and with examples of “normal” adolescents as they develop in feeling and thinking. Our goal should not be to suppress or con- ceal the manifestations of adolescence, the psychic working through of biological maturation processes. On the contrary: an adolescent who exhibits no characteristics of this stormy developmental phase would worry psychoanalysts, and indicates deep disturbances or inhibitions. The great fear we have of ending a phase of life is often unconscious, because it actualizes earlier experiences of separation. Isca Salzberger -Wittenberg (2013, 12) writes: The dread evoked by even ordinary endings comes understandable if we realize that they stir up fears of the loss of security, of being abandoned, left to die. These powerful feelings stem from earliest infancy, the time when our life of being carried within the womb comes to an end, and the cord that con- nected us to mother is cut. Equally our excitement and anxieties at beginnings has its roots in the experience of the new -born opening his eyes to a whole Epilogue