ABSTRACT

Desatellization is a stressful and conflictful phase of ego development. The status goals of ego maturation, are discontinuous from early childhood to late childhood, adolescence, and adult life. Adolescents in culture, naturally, have the same needs for greater earned status and volitional independence. In primitive and traditional cultures, the personality needs of adolescents can be satisfied, and the traits, norms, and skills can be acquired, not without some difficulty and conflict, but without serious alienation from adult society. The utilization of the exploratory orientation is obviously limited during childhood, for as soon as the implications of independent objective investigation are pursued to their logical conclusion, the danger always exists that they conflict with values tied to primary allegiances, and hence precipitate an avalanche of guilt feelings. The formation of peer groups, increases the existing adult-youth alienation, reinforces the aggressive anti-adult orientation, and facilitates its overt, antisocial expression. Precisely, how it does these things deserves more detailed scrutiny.