ABSTRACT
Youth constitutes a large and important segment of the general population. There is considerable evidence that it is a group currently under a great deal of stress with the problems of drug abuse, emotional breakdown, gang violence, educational default, and dropping out. They have been profoundly influenced by parlor devices and television that have beamed continuous messages of violence and destruction for as long as this generation can remember. Contemporary life stresses have been considerable, with many adolescents disassociating themselves from the everyday problems of survival and adaptation, thus reducing their overall stress in an increasingly demanding, oriented society that provides technologically an inadequate place for them in the labor force. Dissolution of the traditional supports of family and institutions have placed additional burdens on the adolescent. We are the clinicians that must respond to their needs [Copeland, 1974].
