ABSTRACT
Human development is the science of human biology and psychology in social context. Just as we have learned that child abuse and neglect are not the simple product of any one factor operating uniformly in all situations, so we are beginning to see that to understand adolescent maltreatment we must identify the special blend of circumstances surrounding and enveloping troubled youth in troubled families. In understanding the origins and significance of adolescent maltreatment, we need to go beyond nostalgic images of adolescents to recognize the sinister images of adolescents as a class. Adolescence constitutes by definition an interruption of peaceful growth which resembles in appearance a variety of other emotional upsets and structural upheavals. The adolescent manifestations come close to symptom formation of the neurotic, psychotic or dissocial order and merge almost imperceptibly into borderline states, initial, frustrated or fully fledged forms of almost all the mental illnesses.
