Adolescent stage of development

In the previous post Anon makes the comment that people don’t need two decades to fully form but they could be fully formed by age 12 - 15. I had previously stated that in my view it takes about 2 decades to fully form.

I think we are both right depending on where you look. The less affluent societies will tend to ‘force’ the youth to grow up quicker whereas the more affluent allow them longer to fully form at least at a psychological level. Consider this diagram:



In Australia, the stage of adolescence has at least doubled in length of time over the past 40 years. It used to be 4 or 5 years and now is 10 to 15 years long. For a person to reach the psychological stage of adulthood they are often in their early 20s. That is for the adolescent stage psychological issues to have largely dissipated takes much longer now.

Why would this be so?



There are a number of possible reasons for this.

1. As a general rule the more educated a society is the longer adolescence will be. If one is receiving schooling then one is not working. If one is not working then one does not have economic independence which is a key feature in finishing adolescence - no longer being financially dependent on others, usually the parents.

2. Marriage is tending to occur later. One does not hear much about weddings occurring with 18 and 19 year olds as they did not so long ago. So in this way people do not have to be ‘grown up’ so early.

3. Related to this child birth is occurring later and numbers of children is reducing. This allows people to be more irresponsible in this sense, all they have to do is look after self and not a child.

4. As a society we tolerate this period called adolescence more so than in the past. In the city where I live every year there is a week or fortnight called ‘schoolies week’. This is where those who have just completed high school (17/18 year olds) go on vacation as soon as their last examinations end. On this vacation they drink too much alcohol, take drugs and engage in gratuitous sex. Whilst I am sure there are many who do not do such things, this is what is highlighted in the press year in and year out. In general it is tolerated by society and even viewed with amusement by some. I would imagine that there are many societies around the world who would not tolerate such things at all.



5. As some societies becomes more affluent they do not need the group of ‘adolescents’ to be working so as to maintain a functioning society. This allows for more navel gazing. As food and shelter become more certain people start to look at their psychological needs and adolescence is a prime example of where such navel gazing can occur.

6. Life span increases. Over that past 50 to 70 years the average life span has increased by about 20 years. So in this sense there is less of a need to hurry through the developmental stages. As people can now be adults for longer they can then proceed through adolescence at a slower rate. And there are more older people to maintain a functioning society so the young are not needed so much to be out there working for the society to survive.

Experts in the area of adolescent development have used the following phrases to describe teenagers in this stage of development:




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Antiscript and the male mid life crisis

Eric Berne in his book “What do you say after you say hello” talks about the Antiscript. Here is a diagram of the antiscript. The child is born and from that point on it needs to make sense out of the world and who it is. In Transactional Analysis terms the child does that by making a whole series of early decisions based on how it is treated by its parents. As these are being made the child then comes to the conclusion about its life position or its basic understanding of its worth and the worth of others.

After these have been establish the child then is on the path of his life script. Some simply stay on that path and live their life following their script to its conclusion. Others when they reach adolescence veer away from the life script path onto the path of the what Eric Berend called the antiscript. At this point they stop following the life script, rebel against it and stop living by the injunctions and drivers given by the parents.

This will include the Rebellious Child ego state doing the opposite of the script programme as well as the Free Child trying out new non-script bound behaviours, feelings, attitudes and decisions.

The antiscript in adolescence usually lasts about 5 to 6 years and then we have the most important part of the antiscript process. When the teenager starts to get to the end of their antiscript period what do they do then? The main question is how much do they just swing back to the life script path and live that life out. This is where the counsellor can be of considerable use to the teenager. At that point where the antiscript period is ending.

Some people swing back one hundred percent to the life script path and spend the rest of their days living it out. Others swing back in varying degrees, that is they use the experience of their RC rebellions and their Free Child experimentations of the antiscript period to make non-script bound decisions on how they want to live their life. Using various therapy techniques the counsellor can help the teenager at this time in this way. From what I have seen most often the therapeutic opportunities afforded by the antiscript process are lost in counselling as the counsellor does not seize the moment to the advantage of the adolescent.

Some people spend much longer periods in the antiscript and will live a life style that is very contrary to what the parents programme was for them. For instance the man whose parents groomed him to be an accountant ends up living like a feral in the bush on a commune, living off the land. He does not swing back at all to the life script and stays stuck in the antiscript which can last for many years.

The other thing the counsellor needs to be advising, is for the teenager to avoid making major life decisions whilst in antiscript. For instance never choose a marital partner whilst in antiscript. My suggestion is that for Australian conditions never get married before the age of 25 years. The swing back from antiscript to script can be quite rapid and involve quite a marked change in personality, life goals and so forth. In a matter of 12 months a person can change quite dramatically on occasion. The person you married may all of a sudden go through major changes in their views, attitudes and goals of life.

This also applies in a choice of career which people in their late teens and early 20s are often considering. Letting the teenager know that they have time to choose and indeed may try a variety of occupational paths before ending up with the one they want. This can be a problem for some parents who want the child to get on a career path by age 19 when they go to university, take up a trade and so forth. The counsellor of the teenager can find it difficult going because of difficulties with the parents of the teenager rather than the teenager.

After the adolescent antiscript period ends once again people will continue on their life path with much less disruption to the person’s life script that occurred with the antiscript. Sometimes however there can be another period of antiscript disruption later in life. For some men this occurs with the mid life crisis.

The man has spent the past 20 years being responsible, working diligently, doing the right thing by supporting the family and so forth. At around 40 he realises this, looks at the next 30 years of his life and sees the same looming for him. For some this can be very disturbing such that they again move into an antiscript period. He leaves his wife, starts dating women half his age, buys a sports car, starts going to night clubs and hanging out with the ‘tragic’ singles set. He is doing the same as the teenager in that he realises what his life script is and thus makes a loud and unsophisticated attempt to alter it and veer onto a different life path.

From a therapy perspective the goals are the same as for the teenager. With the use of various therapy techniques the man is afforded the opportunity to use the experience of his RC rebellions and Free Child experimentations of the antiscript period to make non-script bound decisions on how he wants to live his life.

As with the teenager from what I have seen most often the therapeutic opportunities afforded by the mid life crisis antiscript period are lost in counselling as the counsellor does not seize the moment to the advantage of the middle aged man.

The key from a counselling point of view for any antiscript period is when the person is coming to the end of it one uses it to the therapeutic advantage of the client in the ways that I have described. Indeed there are many therapeutic interventions the therapist can use with the client when they are in the heights of the antiscript process that will also assist when the antiscript process in coming to its closure.

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Establishing independence

There are eight main psychological struggles that children and teenagers need to resolve before they become psychologically complete as an adult. Below are the first four.

1. Leaving home. Establishing independence from home supervision.

*Emergence from parental supervision

*Reliance from the security one can give self rather than security provided by the parents.

*Development of an attitude towards parents as friends rather than protectors and supervisors.

*Planning of one’s own time and making one’s own decisions without parental control.

Free from parental supervision

In psychotherapy there is a general rule of thumb for the adolescent or adult client. Do they refer to their parents as mummy & daddy, mum & dad or Fred & Alice. This is about getting a psychological divorce from ones parents and if one refers to their parents by their christian names then they are more likely to have resolved this dilemma. If they refer to them as mummy and daddy then there can be considerable emotional immaturity.

To become an adult or a person in ones own right one must learn how to deal with the good and bad events in life. How to deal with things like gossip, rejection, feeling scared, ashamed, angry. It is the overprotective parents cause the most problems with this psychological struggle.

This also refers to the geographical separation from the parents such as moving out into an abode of their own. Physically leaving home can greatly assist the child in resolving this psychological struggle. This need can also be reflected in the desire of younger people to travel and see some of the world without the parents being present.

Family

2. Emotional maturity. A person does not become an adult until he has abandoned childish or adolescent ways of reacting emotionally.

*Substitution of harmless instead of harmful ways of expressing emotion. For instance young children hit and bite when angry. Temper tantrums is another example.

*Learning to react to emotional situations objectively. If someone is angry at what you have done, to be able to assess objectively if their anger is justified or not. Being able to move beyond simple revenge responses or an eye for an eye thinking.

*Learning to accept criticism without hurt feelings.

*Learning to face things that are unpleasant instead of running away from them.

*Elimination of childish fears and anxieties.

3. Social maturity. This is not independence from home but maturity in one’s own social circle.

*Development of a sense of security in one’s social circle.

*Ability to get along with others in peer relationships

*Ability to take part in the activities of the group, without trying to either dominate it or be excessively submissive in it.

*Freedom from excessive dependence on one’s social group. This allows one to go some what against the norms of the group but still remain part of it.

*Development of a tolerance to different social groups.

Choosing who to be friends with is up to them

Teenagers have an acute interest in social matters. They can be dependent and meticulously imitate their friends and social group. This serves a real and positive purpose in the break away from the parents. However it can become a problem in itself if the person merely becomes a slave to the norms of the group instead of the parents.

4. Beginnings of economic independence. One cannot truly become psychologically adult until they earn their own living.

*Reasonably accurate estimate of one’s abilities

*Selection of a field of work in which success is possible

*Completion of enough training to get started in one’s career

*Realising the need to work

One can not become who they are without economic independence.

This is a distinctive difficulty for children from wealthy families. Many parents will promote economic ties as a way to keep children around. This also highlights the difficulty when a child goes into the family business and is why often the second generation in the family business in much less successful. If given an easy path into the family business they tend to be more interested in the spoils of it than making it profitable.

In western society these psychological struggles have gained extra importance in recent years as they evolve more and more into nanny states. As the state takes more and more responsibility to protect and look after its young it is becoming harder and harder for them to evolve into what is seen as psychologically adult.

We are making it harder and harder for the young to become psychologically independent. To do that they have to take risks of their own and that means some of them will get hurt and some will even die. We have to accept that there will be casualties or risk the predicament of promoting a generation of dependents.

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