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Adolescence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Ian Berg
Ian Berg*
Affiliation:
Leeds District Western Health Authority and Yorkshire Regional Health Authority, University of Leeds, The Leeds General Infirmary Psychiatric Outpatient Department, 15 Hyde Terrace, Leeds LS2 9ET
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Extract

Adolescence is a stage in the development of an individual which links childhood and adult life. Nowadays in Western society adolescence lasts from the early teens, about the time that puberty normally begins, until the early twenties. The main feature of this period is the adoption of adult ways of behaving. There are a number of obvious milestones, the end of compulsory education in the mid-teens and the start of work or further education, the possibility of living independently away from the family and of marriage, as well as the right to drive a car and to vote. Adolescence is accompanied by accelerated physical growth, the development of secondary sexual characteristics, increased emotional maturity, the emergence of a new way of thinking and the formation of a particular identity. A glance at Boorer and Murgatroyd's selected bibliography published in 1972 and the list of references in Rutter's Rock Carling Fellowship Monograph: Changing Youth in a Changing Society (1979) shows the enormous number of books and papers which have been devoted to this period of life. For anyone wanting a readable introduction to the subject of Adolescence, the two relevant chapters of Mussen, Conger and Kagen's (1974) Child Development and Personality can be confidently recommended.

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The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 144 , Issue 1 , January 1984 , pp. 94 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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