ABSTRACT
An important distinction lies in whether stressful life transitions and experiences are seen as stemming directly from adolescent development or whether the life stresses of adolescents, rather than of adolescence, are being studied. The problem of the multiple stress arenas of adolescent functioning must be distinguished from a different contextual issue, namely the importance of protective factors that promote resilience in the face of stress. The question of how social relationships can shape coping characteristics like a sense of mastery provides a new and needed direction for social support research in that it recognizes the significance of both "external" and "internal" coping resources and the processes that may link them. Several of the authors are senior researchers in the field of adolescent mental health and have developed some of the major frameworks and data sets for conceptualizing and studying the interrelationships among development, stress, and mental health. The chapter presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
