Teenager separation or teenager transformation

“The successful transition of adolescence does not assume the youth detach themselves from their parents. In fact, the transition to autonomy and adulthood is facilitated by secure attachment and emotional connectedness to the parents. This shows that connection (secure attachment) and separation (autonomy) are two sides of the same attachment coin. Attachment security fosters exploration and the development of new competencies thus facilitating the development towards autonomy.

As the youth moves towards autonomy (forming outside the family attachments) it is crucial they have enduring availability and responsivity from the parents as a secure base. At the same time they are moving into a period of  identity negotiation and relationship transition with the parents that is inevitably conflictual in nature. Thus the transition from adolescence involves both sustaining connectedness and  moving towards individuation, simultaneously.” (Moretti & Holland)

What these people are presenting is an oxymoron. They are saying:

As the parent teenager attachment becomes less important in the teenagers mind 

the 

parent teenager attachment becomes more important in the teenagers mind.

They are indeed presenting is a tripartite system instead of the usual dual process of separation and individuation. 

They are saying there is 

Separation

Transformation and 

Individuation

Crucial to this stage is: 

1. Separation from parents to an identity of autonomy

2. Individuation of self to develop ones own identity

3. Transformation . In order to separate one maintains an attachment to the parents and that relationship with then transforms.

For separation to be complete it must survive the transformation process.

In one sense it could be said that there is not really any separation from the parents only a transformation of the relationship. The separation is just one subset of the overall transformation process. In the transformation process, at least initially, the teenager becomes less separate form the parents. In this sense it could be seen that they are going backwards and becoming less separate rather than more separate from the parents.

This is an interesting idea. It certainly has direct therapeutic implications in the way one presents the idea of separation to the parents and the teenager. The attachment to the parents does not disappear indeed it becomes more important to the teenager!

Consider this diagram

Around 13 years of age the child proceeds on line A. It feels a need to spend less time with the parents and feels freer to move away from them geographically. Behind this is the psychological need to go out into different relationships in the world and form secure attachments with others including non family members.

That process is a psychologically onerous one at least to some degree. The adolescent therefore wants a secure attachment with the parents to help cope with the anxiety of doing this. Hence we have line B which is the desire for a secure attachment. As the teenager begins to break away it actually becomes more dependent on the attachment with the parents. In this sense it could be said that it is going backwards. In its desire to become independent from the parents it becomes more dependent on the parents. But as line B shows this is only temporary. As the teenager becomes more secure in its attachments with people other than the parents these then are used as the basis for feeling secure rather than using the parents for that basic sense of security.

In the graph I have drawn this as occurring between the ages of 13 and 15 years. This of course varies depending on the teenager, the parents and the ability of all parties to handle this process.

Interestingly, I have in the past intuitively referred to this stage as the borderline stage of adolescent development and now with the clarification of these concepts it makes sense of my observation. What I mean by this is the young adolescent begins to behave in a similar fashion as does the borderline personality. In particular the way a teenager relates to his parents has a similar quality to how the borderline personality relates to others in their life. 

To quote from the DSM 5 on the borderline. 

“The essential feature of the borderline personality is a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self image and affects, and marked impulsivity...”

“Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.”

“A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.”

Some of these qualities can be seen in how the young adolescent relates to his parents and indeed his/her first romantic partners. This especially becomes apparent when the parents hold on too tight. 

It is not uncommon for parents to bring their teenager to counselling when this is happening. The volatile unstable family relationships are onerous for all concerned and they seek some kind of help to reduce these (borderline like) ways of relating.

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Human development

Developmental psychologists have tended to divide up the human life span into the following three categories. Most books on human psychological development use this breakdown.

One can portray human development as a series of hurdles of tasks that the person must jump over or master. For example in childhood the child has to learn to walk, talk, be toilet trained, deal with the oedipus complex, go to school and so on. They need to go through all the stages of cognitive development and moral development and so on. A child goes through a period of significant and quite fast physical change and psychological change.

One can say the same applies for the teenager. They have a whole series of hurdles to jump or tasks to master. They also have to go through a series of cognitive and moral development stages, learn how to engage with the opposite sex, develop a social support system with their peers and so forth. Like in childhood they go through a period of quite fast and significant physical and psychological development.

Developmental psychologist have decided to make a separation between the stages of childhood and adolescence. This corresponds with the age about when puberty starts. For some reason at this point they say a person has moved onto a new stage of psychological development. They distinguish between the psychological stage of childhood and the psychological stage of adolescence as occurring when puberty arrives.

To my mind this is an arbitrary distinction which is a nonsense and I have not heard of the rational for doing this. One could argue that this distinction needs to be made because the developmental tasks required in childhood are significantly different than the developmental tasks required in adolescence. This is a hypothesis with which I would agree. Without a doubt a 4 year old child is dealing with very different developmental issues than a 14 year old teenager. However the choice of 12 or 13 years of age for the new developmental stage to arrive seems quite a random decision to make.

It can also be argued that a 2 year old child and an 8 year old child are very different physically and the psychological developmental issues they are dealing with are also quite different. So why not conclude that they are two separate developmental stages instead of including them in the same developmental stage as is currently the case. The same of course applies for a 13 year old and the 18 year old. At the moment they are in the same developmental stage but they are also quite different physically and psychologically. Why are they not defined as two separate developmental stages?

One can really see the two stages of childhood and adolescence as one developmental stage. In both stages the young person is going through significant and rapid physical and psychological change. Whereas in adulthood this is not the case. Yes there is indeed physical and psychological change occurring in adulthood but it can be seen as much slower and less psychologically significant. Thus there is much more focus on the younger person as this is where more of the difficulties can occur if the development is not occurring as it should. Developmental psychology is about developmental change in the person so one could see the human life cycle in a different way. Divided up into phases where there is a lot of psychological change occurring and not.

In this model pre-adulthood (childhood and adolesence) is seen as a phase of significant physical and psychological development. Adulthood is a phase of much less significant physical and psychological development. At the end of life we have another developmental stage, Post-adulthood. One could say this stage begins in the late 50s or 60s. In this period there is significant physical change as the body again moves into such a phase of change. These changes can have significant consequences including major disability, deformity or death. These changes force the person into significant psychological change as they accept, or seek to deny, the consequences of such change and acceptance of their bodily changes. With the physical changes the person has to change their perception of them self and their interaction with others and the environment. Thus one could argue that this constitutes a significant level of psychological change and hence we have another period of the development cycle.

For instance the loss of sight, hearing, memory, physical abilities and many other conditions like Parkinson's disease all require the person to make a significant psychological readjustment about how they perceive them self, their identity and how they interact with the world. Of course with illness and accidents these can occur in the adulthood stage and also result in disability and or disfigurement. Again the person has to change their perception of self and the world like happens in the Post-adulthood stage.

This model is about periods of developmental change and periods of non significant change which seems to be the task for the developmental psychologist. In the beginning of life there is a period of significant physical and psychological change. To arbitrarily break this up seems to be a nonsense. This is followed by a period of about 30 to 40 years where there is much more consistency in ones physical and psychological state such that much less psychological development and change occurs. Finally in the last couple of decades of life one again goes into a state of significant physical change. It is postulated that this would then result in significant psychological change as the person reorients their identity and perception of self to correctly align with their physical self.

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Matricide and attachment

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Violence and aggression in youth

Adolescent aggression

Anti social  behaviour during adolescence is statistically normal, and only a small proportion continue to behave in an antisocial way into adulthood. Criminological research shows that the prevalence of criminal involvement peaks during middle to late adolescence then declines rapidly and tapers off for most by their early twenties.

(My response:  One wonders what is the evolutionary advantage of having a criminal youth? Perhaps they give society a spark that results in change if need be. Keeps society on its toes so to speak?)

Anger management

Four core components of anger management.

1.  Exposure to provocation that leads to some level of emotional arousal.

2. Cognitive change that mediates the automatic thoughts which lead to angry feelings.

3. Self management skills that lead to the development of appropriate coping skills

4. Relaxation to reduce physiological arousal  and manage stress.

Engaging the violent client

One of the biggest challenges in working with the aggressive and violent client is engaging them in the process of change. Some (many) will resist taking responsibility for their own feelings and violent behaviour. Some steadfastly maintain they were justified in their behaviour  and it was appropriate for them to act violently. Habitually aggressive people can be hostile towards treatment providers.

Youth violence: family risk factors.

Poor behaviour management practice by parents such as poor supervision

High levels of family conflict

Family history of antisocial behaviour

Childhood abuse and neglect

All of the above comes from:

 InPsych: Bulletin of the Australian Psychological Society,  June 2013.

Transactional analysis and youth violence

One would propose the presence of an early violence decision. This is similar in nature to the suicide early decision that I discuss in detail in my book - Working with suicidal individuals. 

When a young child makes the suicide decision it means it decides that suicide is a viable option as a problem solving technique should it to choose to use that option later in life. The violence decision is the same. The young child makes an early decision that violence is a viable option to solve a problem. If this decision is not made then that person will be very unlikely to use violence as a solution to a problem in adulthood. As is the same with the suicide decision.

Three aspects of violent behaviour

One can look at two further aspects of the violence decision which can be made in childhood and  are presumed to be a prerequisite for any pattern of violent behaviour exhibited by youth or adults.

It seems reasonable to assume that the child who is likely to make the early violence decision would have a natural temperament of fight, versus flight or freeze. That child who has an inbuilt propensity to deal with stress and adversity by fighting rather than fleeing or using the 'play dead' response. 

It seems plausible that the individual who has a natural temperament of fight is more likely to adopt the life position of You're not ok. Hence we have an interaction  between three variables. The temperament of fight, the life position of You're not ok and the early violence decision. Each one supporting the other thus making the violent individual quite resistant to therapeutic interventions because of this intertwined effect between these three personality factors.

The violence decision

This allows us to formulate a hypothesis on the psychology behind the violent and aggressive client. It shows a process of how the factors of temperament, life position and early decision could be seen to combine.

The suicide decision

Contemporaneously we can propose a similar process for suicidal behaviour. The temperament type in suicidal behaviour could be seen to be primarily the flight response. One could also argue that Fight can result in some of the suicide decisions. Debate on this exists though, as some argue that fight is simply used as a means to fulfill the primary response of flight.

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Self medicating ADD with marijuana

Uxma Javaid B said.

Great observation Tony I would like to share my observation here that Marijuana is not just effective in ADHD but also for those who suffer from Schizophrenia and Bipolar disorder, they also tend to use some form of drugs (smoking, marijuana are more in use) to subside their symptoms and interestingly they get benefit from such drug use (feel more calmer and thought process in control). Marijuana (a mind-bender drug) has some significant properties which slower our thought process and gives us a temporary sense of calmness. People learn to use these drugs for their benefit through experimentation or on a friend's recommendation. It seems a perfect remedy for such psychiatric illnesses thus far.

But the other side of the fact is that illicit drugs do have a great susceptibility for addiction. The person can go into double jeopardy if he also has a predisposition to addiction along with a psychiatric illness such as ADHD, Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder or Depression. It's not very uncommon for professionals to treat Dual Diagnosis at Rehabs.

So, it's being wise not to use marijuana or other illicit drugs to self-medicate one self for any Psychiatric illness. People should take proper medication suggested by health care professionals (Doctors, Psychiatrists) to get long term benefits.

I replied

Thank you for your good comments Uxma and I would agree with you that some sufferers of schizophrenia do report a lessening of their symptoms after smoking cannabis.

I also think you make a good point that illicit drugs do have a susceptibility for addiction and the process of self medicating is a hazardous on indeed and one I do not suggest to anyone as using properly prescribed medications does seem the best path. Having said that one must also be aware that plenty of legal prescriptions drugs are quite addictive as well.

Also some times it is difficult path for the drug counsellor to walk. The client I talk about in my statement I have not suggested he go and get prescription drugs for his ADHD which in Australia would be dexamphetamines. He knows about this any way himself, but I have not encouraged it because I know what is likely to happen. It will just add one more addictive drug (dexamphetamine) into the cocktail of drugs that he already uses. He is unlikely to stop smoking marijuana and he would just also start taking dexamphetamines which also are very easy drugs to sell on the black market which he could then start doing to get more money to by his marijuana.



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Why do I write?

In the Script Newsletter they have a regular column which asks this question. Various ITAA members have answered it so I thought I would give it a go as well.

Over the years I have had people who are wanting to write an article ask me, “How do you start to write?” I just don’t understand that question. The problem for me is not how to start but how to stop.

I recall being 13 or 14 and I kind of got my first girl friend. I then spontaneously started to write her love letters because that is what you do, or at least I thought that is what you do. Over time however I discovered that my peers did not do the same. In fact I could not find one who did the same thing. I recall feeling that I was a bit odd and wondered, “Why wouldn’t you write such letters?”. However this, as I said made me feel a bit strange so I stopped writing them.

Then in late high school I studied literature and we had various writing exercises from time to time. I did them all in this exercise book which eventually never left my side and it became kind of my friend. It was not really a diary but a place where I wrote my homework exercises and would write other things that I thought about. I even wrote some fantasy short stories I thought up. Fiction writing has never really appealed to me. It’s OK but it did not really hold any great interest for me. But I can recall having that exercise book and it was kind of quite important to me at the time. I wish I still had it but it got lost some where along the way.

In my early twenties I began studying psychology at university and I discovered that I would get all these ideas about psychology and philosophical stuff. When I read something I would get lots of ideas about it. Different ways of looking at what I was reading or combining different ideas about the same subject to arrive at a different conclusion and so forth. Also I have never read a book from cover to cover, particularly psychology books. I only read sections at a time that are of current interest to me or something I have an idea about.  Then I will go to another book or journal article on the same topic and read what they have to say. I may end up reading the whole book but it is only section by section over time and in any order that interests me at the time.

After a bit of time I found that I was getting over loaded with these ideas in my head and actually went through a bit of a bad patch in this way in the very early days at university. So I started writing them down. These were not assignments I had to do for my degree or preparation for some exam these were outside the requirements for any formal study. I recall a few fellow students who saw some of this writing ask me why I did it to which I initially did not have an answer.

However I eventually came up with an answer of - Why do I write? It serves two functions for me. The first one is it provides me with some cathartic relief. The actual process of writing the idea out provides a sense of relief for me. It kind of gets the idea out of my head. 

Second it means I could then let the idea go. I don’t know if this sounds weird or not but I have this sense of a huge 3D spider web. Like a matrix type of thing and all the ideas are connected to each other in the matrix. Each idea has a number of links (like the 3D web) to other ideas. They are all categorized and each category is linked to other categories. 

When I first started getting these ideas I would not want to forget them because then I would have forgotten them and the link would be lost. So I got overloaded for a while as I said before. However I discovered that if I wrote them down then I had a record of them and then that part of the matrix would not be lost. I could always refer back to it as i do. Writing the idea down allowed me to let the idea go because it would not be lost. I did not have to try and keep it in my head.

So that is why I write but this created another problem. As time went on what I had written started to mount up. This was before computers so I started to get a pile of papers that I had written. What was I going to do with them?

Over the years they have been complied in different ways and presented to the public in different ways. But originally I created a seminar called the Loftus Street Seminar where I had my office. It involved a series of lectures on the ideas I had thought up and eventually this resulted in a book called  “New ways in Transactional Analysis - Proceedings of the Loftus Street Seminar (Volume 1)” which was published in 1984.

There ended up being 9 volumes

Volume	Title	Date
One	New ways in transactional analysis	1984
Two	Transference based therapy	1985
Three	Psychoseparation	1986
Four	Creative feeling	1986
Five	The treatment of character	1987
Six	Adolescence, anger and what to do	1990
Seven	Employee support programme	1991
Eight	Staying alive	1991
Nine	Psychotherapy and the art of being human	1993

Then the internet arrived and that was like leaving a child in a candy store. It’s all about writing and now what I write can easily be presented to the world.

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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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