ABSTRACT
Character change in adolescence refers to the changes in the adolescent's 'expectable ways of unconsciously constructing conflicted situations, of acting in these situations, and of developing experiential reports of these situations and their correlative actions'. When the organism is not directly involved in activities related to intense need states, it has desires for work, play, exploring/adventure, and learning. In their conceptualization of the autonomous self-organization, they maintain that the adolescent psyche's striving for autonomy may be considered an ordering principle of character formation. Although the phrase autonomous self-organization is tied to the idea of the transformational self, it is too closely linked to separation-individuation thinking with its emphasis on independence and consolidation over transformation. Furthermore, while the autonomous self-organization seems to capture the experience of the late adolescent male, it does not explain the affiliation, caring/maternal, and joining needs of the female.
