ABSTRACT
Late adolescence brings all the challenges of leaving childhood, bearing being alone some of the time, risking sex and intimacy. This is tough enough for any adolescent, but even harder to the degree that conflict and difficulty has been evaded earlier on. Living in the family home, it is possible to take for granted all kinds of care, which happens almost unnoticed. D. W. Winnicott spoke of the child who learns to be alone and absorbed in his own activities with the background unobtrusive presence of his mother or other carer. For someone whose earlier experience was of emotionally unavailable, unconnected parenting, then he might hang around with others, but in a disconnected way, or might frantically scramble for company, but in a conflicted way, since his expectations of contact is of disappointment or danger. Sex can seem to offer a shortcut to closeness, touch and connection–yet the reality of it can be disappointing and alienating.
