ABSTRACT
Although the literature on mental illness is replete with descriptions and analyses of its manifestations in childhood and in adulthood, there is much less information about the inbetween years of adolescence. There is professional and scientific interest in adolescence per se, but little to be found on the transition of those who are mentally ill/emotionally disturbed from the status of "child" to that of "adult." For all youngsters the years from late adolescence to young adulthood are complicated by, in addition to personal and family psychological matters, the ending of legally required schooling, the economics of separation from family, the onset of independent living, and the need to assume the mantle of "worker" or "wage earner" or otherwise to become a selfdependent contributor to the gross national product.
