ABSTRACT
According to the one theory, the upheaval in the psychic life is probably due to chemical changes, that is, it is the direct consequence of the beginning of the functioning of the sexual glands. The second theory claims that psychic development is entirely independent of glandular and instinctual processes. There is one single point at which these two trends of thought in psychology meet: both are agreed that not only the physical but also the psychic phenomena of puberty are of the utmost importance in the development of the individual and that here are the beginning and the root of the sexual life, of the capacity for love, and of character as a whole. Ego institutions which have resisted the onslaught of puberty without yielding generally, remain throughout life inflexible, unassailable, and insusceptible of the rectification which a changing reality demands. The immutability of the id is matched by the mutability of the ego.
