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Variations in personality growth during adolescence
Volume 59
Number 5
T h e Journal o[ P E D I A T R I C S
743
Variations in personality gro tb during adolescence Richard E. Wolf, M.D.* CINCINNATI,
OHIO
A D O L E S C E N C E may be defined as that period in the life of a person when the society in which he functions ceases to regard him as a child and yet does not accord him full adult status, roles, and functions. Thus, we see adolescence not as a chronologic period, but rather as a physiologic, psychological, and sociologic span. Though we know that special physiologic changes begin to occur from age 10 to 18, these are only some of the changes and reaction to change which characterize the adolescent. The setting in which the adolescent changes are taking place is important to understand. The adolescent must attend school until he is 16 (in many instances he continues to be a student well into his twenties). He is not permitted a full-time job until 16. At age 18 he is subject to the draft, but he does not acquire full citizenship rights until he is 21. All of this is without regard for the rate of his own physiologic and psychologic maturation. Just as there is variation in physiologic development during adolescence, there is also tremendous variation in personality develop-
From The Children's Hospital, Department o[ Pediatrics, University o[ Cincinnati, College o[ Medicine. ~Address, Children's Hospital, Cincinnati 29, Ohio.
ment. This is complicated by the fact that growth is occurring during a period when internal changes are taking place and while the environment is reacting to the altered behavior brought about by these changes. Sometimes it is difficult to ascertain how much of the behavior of the adolescent resuits from changes within him, and how much derives from the reaction of the environment to him. There has always been concern on the part of the adults of a culture for the adolescent, and the place of the adolescent in tile culture varies with the culture. Among primitive tribes physiologic maturation and initiation ceremony entitled the adolescent to enter the adult culture without difficulty. However, in our culture, where the gap is great between physical maturation and "sociologic maturation," psychologic adjustment will be more complex. Certainly there is increasing concern for the adolescent and also concern about him. A fair portion of this concern grows out of the anxiety aroused by the pathology of adolescence. Even the term "adolescent" signifies to many adults something worrisome arid, therefore, pathologic. To most people, "juvenile" has become associated with "juvenile delinquent." Although this is unfortunate, it is not hard to understand
7 44
Wol[
when it is realized that knowledge about adolescence comes, for the most part, from psychiatrists, social workers, and psychologists who see disturbed adolescents. The pediatrician, or family physician, who might have had the opportunity to see the healthy adolescent has not had the time or has not felt adequate to deal with him. In this symposium an attempt is made to outline normal adolescent development and to emphasize the normal variations during this growth period. Whether one refers to physical, intellectual, .social, or emotional growth, the emphasis is on the positive, healthy aspects of growth between the ages of 12 and 22. This makes adolescence "the age of the final establishment of a dominant e g o identity," as Erickson puts it, and "it is then that a future within reach becomes part of the conscious life plan." To look forward to the future implies standing in the present, having traveled from the past. Whether remembered or not, the "before" cannot help but affect the "now" and the "to be." If the adolescent would ask his own questions, they would probably be something like this: "Who and what do they think I am?" "What do I [eel I am, and what should I
become?" The search for the self in relation to the group is the developmental task of this period. H o w does this come about? I n the search for the answer to the first question, "Who do they think I a m ? " the adolescent is dealing with his own identity. In finding his identity he must adjust his ego to the social environment. In other words, this is concerned with ever more development outward, toward those functions of the ego that are apparent to others. This can be called the sociocentric function of the adolescent ego. T h e second question, "What do I feel I am and what should I become?" refers to the adaptation of the social environment to the ego. This involves ever more development inward, within the bounds of the ego, and a concern with what he feels himself to be--his role. This can be referred to as the egocentric function of the ego.
November 1961
Individual variations in personality growth during adolescence make it difficult to describe adolescents as a group. Variability from adolescent to adolescent (and the changes within the same adolescent within short intervals of time) is perhaps the most characteristic feature. The variations of physical growth, the timing of environmental changes, and the accidents and events of the individual's past will help determine the pattern of the personality that unfolds during adolescence. Besides variability, there are 2 main areas of change shared by all adolescents: the reawakening" sexual interest and the pressure from within to be freed of dependence. The wish to be loved, now enhanced by biologic sexual urges and stimulated by the desire for independence, now has increased primitive strength. T h e pressure to be freed of dependence carries with it denim of the standards of the parents, in favor of strong acceptance of the philosophy determined by the peer group. The degree of activity in expressing these 2 characteristics of the adolescent comes from something that can be called sensation hunger, which means the capacity to feel deeply and to invest tremendous energy in sensation. This voracious sensualism of the adolescent easily frightens the more mature members of his culture. He seems to have to get a kick or thrill out of something, to feel intensely, to have new experiences, new sensations. I-Ie chooses the music that will "send" him, he dramatizes self-visualization as he suffers and exults with a Chstro. He invests his entire being in a school pep rally. This sensation-hunger is usually sublimated in cultural activities, sports, intellectual pursuits, in social or political activities. Witness a teen-age project at a high school or recreation center and note the elaborate production of a play with original sets and electrical work all done by the youngsters, and one sees the energy that can go into such an activity. Similarly, the elaborate planning for a party; the "before-the-party" and the "party-after-the-party" are examples of sublimation of this sensation-hunger. Sometimes
Volume 59
Number 5
it may be expressed in "risk thrills," like driving a car too fast. T h e sensation of being in danger or wanting to master the anxieties involved in the threat of physical danger seems to be one of the tasks he assigns himself. His ability to sublimate is working well when he expresses this need by participating in difficult sports, like skiing, mountain climbing or skin diving. As if this were not difficult enough, it alternates with the idealism of the adolescent. Now he seems to be holding himself to standards of behavior too rigid for comfortable living, even to the point of asceticism. By this means, the ego of the adolescent is bombarded by pressures which temporarily weaken it and results in unpredictable behavior and mood swings so marked that, in a more crystallized personality, it would be indicative of serious disturbance. The situation brought about by his own stage of physiologic maturation, the environment in which he finds himself, and the key persons involved, is not all the adolescent must deal with. Problems of his past adjustments are unharnessed again. But now he has another chance to solve these problems that were incompIetely soIved in an earlier period of childhood. With the new skills and aptitudes that come from a larger, stronger, and a changed body apparatus, any residue of feelings of physical inferiority can be dissolved and increased feelings of self-worth liberated. Perhaps nothing so characterizes the struggle of the adolescent as the conflict with his parents. There is a rather pathetic inevitability about this; the adolescent is what he is because of the relationships he has had with his parents and the sort of experiences he has had. There has been love and there has been identification and his conscience has had its origins in that of parents. Dependency upon another person can be an indication of maturity or immaturity. When the adolescent tries to deal with his world as he did in childhood, he finds i t quite different. The increased responsiveness to his environment that he feels and the internal needs accompanying his physiologic changes
Variations in personality growth
74 5
create for him new and baffling situations. The drive for more independence gets in the way of asking advice, so he blunders into situations that he finds difficult to handle. I f he becomes frightened and turns to parents or other adults for support, he dare not permit himself the reassurance he needs, and could get, from a mature dependency relationship. Instead, he may regress and return to the old familiar pattern of infantile dependency. But if he does this, he sees himself as having returned to childhood and to him this means abandoning his struggle to become adult. This is such an intolerable blow to his pride that he resents the dependency for it has threatened his confidence in himself. In order to protest against his own weakness (which he wishes to deny) he protests angrily that his parents will not let him grow up and that they treat him like a child. Temporarily, it m a y seem easier to be angry at parents than to accept his own weakness. However, he wishes to grow up. In wishing this, he needs to tear away the roots of his conscience from the parent figure and to be able to trust in himself. And then the parent, having given some permission for him to grow up and modify the character of his social life, etc., is frightened by the apparent instability of the adolescent, tending to inhibit him where freedom was formerly implied. Now the choice of his friends m a y be the ones that seem calculated to be unacceptable to his parents. Often these are new friends or old acquaintances from former days, now drawn together by mutual interests, compatibility of tastes, and shared annoyances with the adults about them. While he protests his adequacy to care for himself, he shows how frightened he is to do this, frightened by his own impulse to emancipate himself. Actually, when his quandary becomes severe, the adolescent regresses, asking for more limits, for decisions to be made by the parents, etc. In this paradox, perhaps, lies the explanation of why it is that, no matter how wise a parent m a y be, he can never be right for any length of time with his adolescent child. T o under-
746
Wol[
stand and accept the desires of the adolescent and at the same time be able to relinquish parental controls and transfer responsibility to him requires a neat measure of adjustment and security on the part of the adult. When the standards of the particular family and the standards of the community in which they live are quite similar, there is less adjustment difficulty for the young person than there is when there is a wide discrepancy between the standards of his family and those of the community. Here it is that the difference between the philosophy of the peer group may pull strongly in one direction and the pull of the identification and loyalty to parents in another. When the difference is great, various defensive reactions become possible. Well known is the submission versus rebellion reaction, or the development of a psychosomatic illness to keep the adolescent incapacitated and free from decision-making. Often, fortunately, the adolescent and his parent can interact in a situation where each recognizes his disagreement but neither considers it indicative of dbturbance in the other. An analogy can be drawn between the development of America, as a nation, and the development of each American adolescent.
November 1961
just as America is a melting pot made up of people from different backgrounds, so is the adolescent personality made up of identifications from multiple sources in his background. An American today grows out of what he has come from, been exposed to, and wants to become. An adolescent is what he is, based on what he has come from, his parents, and what he has been exposed to, to which he adds his ideas of what he is to become. Just as America tries to establish for herself a superidentity from all the identities of her constituent immigrants, and thus find a dominant identity, so too does the adolescent need to be able to sink his roots in established tradition and institutions, but still have within him the frontiersman's urge to venture beyond, to find the new, the unestablished, and thereby push the culture a little further. Piaget said "the adolescent is committed to possibilities." The hope for him is that he has good ones from which to choose, that he has the self-assertion to create something new, and that the adults, his parents, are willing for him to have greater success than they. REFERENCE
1. Erickson, Erik H.: Childhood and Society, New York, 1950, W. W. Norton & Co.,~ Inc.
Number 5
T h e Journal o[ P E D I A T R I C S
743
Variations in personality gro tb during adolescence Richard E. Wolf, M.D.* CINCINNATI,
OHIO
A D O L E S C E N C E may be defined as that period in the life of a person when the society in which he functions ceases to regard him as a child and yet does not accord him full adult status, roles, and functions. Thus, we see adolescence not as a chronologic period, but rather as a physiologic, psychological, and sociologic span. Though we know that special physiologic changes begin to occur from age 10 to 18, these are only some of the changes and reaction to change which characterize the adolescent. The setting in which the adolescent changes are taking place is important to understand. The adolescent must attend school until he is 16 (in many instances he continues to be a student well into his twenties). He is not permitted a full-time job until 16. At age 18 he is subject to the draft, but he does not acquire full citizenship rights until he is 21. All of this is without regard for the rate of his own physiologic and psychologic maturation. Just as there is variation in physiologic development during adolescence, there is also tremendous variation in personality develop-
From The Children's Hospital, Department o[ Pediatrics, University o[ Cincinnati, College o[ Medicine. ~Address, Children's Hospital, Cincinnati 29, Ohio.
ment. This is complicated by the fact that growth is occurring during a period when internal changes are taking place and while the environment is reacting to the altered behavior brought about by these changes. Sometimes it is difficult to ascertain how much of the behavior of the adolescent resuits from changes within him, and how much derives from the reaction of the environment to him. There has always been concern on the part of the adults of a culture for the adolescent, and the place of the adolescent in tile culture varies with the culture. Among primitive tribes physiologic maturation and initiation ceremony entitled the adolescent to enter the adult culture without difficulty. However, in our culture, where the gap is great between physical maturation and "sociologic maturation," psychologic adjustment will be more complex. Certainly there is increasing concern for the adolescent and also concern about him. A fair portion of this concern grows out of the anxiety aroused by the pathology of adolescence. Even the term "adolescent" signifies to many adults something worrisome arid, therefore, pathologic. To most people, "juvenile" has become associated with "juvenile delinquent." Although this is unfortunate, it is not hard to understand
7 44
Wol[
when it is realized that knowledge about adolescence comes, for the most part, from psychiatrists, social workers, and psychologists who see disturbed adolescents. The pediatrician, or family physician, who might have had the opportunity to see the healthy adolescent has not had the time or has not felt adequate to deal with him. In this symposium an attempt is made to outline normal adolescent development and to emphasize the normal variations during this growth period. Whether one refers to physical, intellectual, .social, or emotional growth, the emphasis is on the positive, healthy aspects of growth between the ages of 12 and 22. This makes adolescence "the age of the final establishment of a dominant e g o identity," as Erickson puts it, and "it is then that a future within reach becomes part of the conscious life plan." To look forward to the future implies standing in the present, having traveled from the past. Whether remembered or not, the "before" cannot help but affect the "now" and the "to be." If the adolescent would ask his own questions, they would probably be something like this: "Who and what do they think I am?" "What do I [eel I am, and what should I
become?" The search for the self in relation to the group is the developmental task of this period. H o w does this come about? I n the search for the answer to the first question, "Who do they think I a m ? " the adolescent is dealing with his own identity. In finding his identity he must adjust his ego to the social environment. In other words, this is concerned with ever more development outward, toward those functions of the ego that are apparent to others. This can be called the sociocentric function of the adolescent ego. T h e second question, "What do I feel I am and what should I become?" refers to the adaptation of the social environment to the ego. This involves ever more development inward, within the bounds of the ego, and a concern with what he feels himself to be--his role. This can be referred to as the egocentric function of the ego.
November 1961
Individual variations in personality growth during adolescence make it difficult to describe adolescents as a group. Variability from adolescent to adolescent (and the changes within the same adolescent within short intervals of time) is perhaps the most characteristic feature. The variations of physical growth, the timing of environmental changes, and the accidents and events of the individual's past will help determine the pattern of the personality that unfolds during adolescence. Besides variability, there are 2 main areas of change shared by all adolescents: the reawakening" sexual interest and the pressure from within to be freed of dependence. The wish to be loved, now enhanced by biologic sexual urges and stimulated by the desire for independence, now has increased primitive strength. T h e pressure to be freed of dependence carries with it denim of the standards of the parents, in favor of strong acceptance of the philosophy determined by the peer group. The degree of activity in expressing these 2 characteristics of the adolescent comes from something that can be called sensation hunger, which means the capacity to feel deeply and to invest tremendous energy in sensation. This voracious sensualism of the adolescent easily frightens the more mature members of his culture. He seems to have to get a kick or thrill out of something, to feel intensely, to have new experiences, new sensations. I-Ie chooses the music that will "send" him, he dramatizes self-visualization as he suffers and exults with a Chstro. He invests his entire being in a school pep rally. This sensation-hunger is usually sublimated in cultural activities, sports, intellectual pursuits, in social or political activities. Witness a teen-age project at a high school or recreation center and note the elaborate production of a play with original sets and electrical work all done by the youngsters, and one sees the energy that can go into such an activity. Similarly, the elaborate planning for a party; the "before-the-party" and the "party-after-the-party" are examples of sublimation of this sensation-hunger. Sometimes
Volume 59
Number 5
it may be expressed in "risk thrills," like driving a car too fast. T h e sensation of being in danger or wanting to master the anxieties involved in the threat of physical danger seems to be one of the tasks he assigns himself. His ability to sublimate is working well when he expresses this need by participating in difficult sports, like skiing, mountain climbing or skin diving. As if this were not difficult enough, it alternates with the idealism of the adolescent. Now he seems to be holding himself to standards of behavior too rigid for comfortable living, even to the point of asceticism. By this means, the ego of the adolescent is bombarded by pressures which temporarily weaken it and results in unpredictable behavior and mood swings so marked that, in a more crystallized personality, it would be indicative of serious disturbance. The situation brought about by his own stage of physiologic maturation, the environment in which he finds himself, and the key persons involved, is not all the adolescent must deal with. Problems of his past adjustments are unharnessed again. But now he has another chance to solve these problems that were incompIetely soIved in an earlier period of childhood. With the new skills and aptitudes that come from a larger, stronger, and a changed body apparatus, any residue of feelings of physical inferiority can be dissolved and increased feelings of self-worth liberated. Perhaps nothing so characterizes the struggle of the adolescent as the conflict with his parents. There is a rather pathetic inevitability about this; the adolescent is what he is because of the relationships he has had with his parents and the sort of experiences he has had. There has been love and there has been identification and his conscience has had its origins in that of parents. Dependency upon another person can be an indication of maturity or immaturity. When the adolescent tries to deal with his world as he did in childhood, he finds i t quite different. The increased responsiveness to his environment that he feels and the internal needs accompanying his physiologic changes
Variations in personality growth
74 5
create for him new and baffling situations. The drive for more independence gets in the way of asking advice, so he blunders into situations that he finds difficult to handle. I f he becomes frightened and turns to parents or other adults for support, he dare not permit himself the reassurance he needs, and could get, from a mature dependency relationship. Instead, he may regress and return to the old familiar pattern of infantile dependency. But if he does this, he sees himself as having returned to childhood and to him this means abandoning his struggle to become adult. This is such an intolerable blow to his pride that he resents the dependency for it has threatened his confidence in himself. In order to protest against his own weakness (which he wishes to deny) he protests angrily that his parents will not let him grow up and that they treat him like a child. Temporarily, it m a y seem easier to be angry at parents than to accept his own weakness. However, he wishes to grow up. In wishing this, he needs to tear away the roots of his conscience from the parent figure and to be able to trust in himself. And then the parent, having given some permission for him to grow up and modify the character of his social life, etc., is frightened by the apparent instability of the adolescent, tending to inhibit him where freedom was formerly implied. Now the choice of his friends m a y be the ones that seem calculated to be unacceptable to his parents. Often these are new friends or old acquaintances from former days, now drawn together by mutual interests, compatibility of tastes, and shared annoyances with the adults about them. While he protests his adequacy to care for himself, he shows how frightened he is to do this, frightened by his own impulse to emancipate himself. Actually, when his quandary becomes severe, the adolescent regresses, asking for more limits, for decisions to be made by the parents, etc. In this paradox, perhaps, lies the explanation of why it is that, no matter how wise a parent m a y be, he can never be right for any length of time with his adolescent child. T o under-
746
Wol[
stand and accept the desires of the adolescent and at the same time be able to relinquish parental controls and transfer responsibility to him requires a neat measure of adjustment and security on the part of the adult. When the standards of the particular family and the standards of the community in which they live are quite similar, there is less adjustment difficulty for the young person than there is when there is a wide discrepancy between the standards of his family and those of the community. Here it is that the difference between the philosophy of the peer group may pull strongly in one direction and the pull of the identification and loyalty to parents in another. When the difference is great, various defensive reactions become possible. Well known is the submission versus rebellion reaction, or the development of a psychosomatic illness to keep the adolescent incapacitated and free from decision-making. Often, fortunately, the adolescent and his parent can interact in a situation where each recognizes his disagreement but neither considers it indicative of dbturbance in the other. An analogy can be drawn between the development of America, as a nation, and the development of each American adolescent.
November 1961
just as America is a melting pot made up of people from different backgrounds, so is the adolescent personality made up of identifications from multiple sources in his background. An American today grows out of what he has come from, been exposed to, and wants to become. An adolescent is what he is, based on what he has come from, his parents, and what he has been exposed to, to which he adds his ideas of what he is to become. Just as America tries to establish for herself a superidentity from all the identities of her constituent immigrants, and thus find a dominant identity, so too does the adolescent need to be able to sink his roots in established tradition and institutions, but still have within him the frontiersman's urge to venture beyond, to find the new, the unestablished, and thereby push the culture a little further. Piaget said "the adolescent is committed to possibilities." The hope for him is that he has good ones from which to choose, that he has the self-assertion to create something new, and that the adults, his parents, are willing for him to have greater success than they. REFERENCE
1. Erickson, Erik H.: Childhood and Society, New York, 1950, W. W. Norton & Co.,~ Inc.