ABSTRACT
Girls are taught to be home-loving and to value the security of the familiar. There are positive aspects to this but when a girl fails to develop an adequate sense of inner security, so that she cannot cope with change, the effect is all negative. The pattern of dependency, fear and rejection of a new situation, and projection of the resentments on to others so that they are seen as the enemy, is commonplace. When the fears have any real base, such as the largeness and strangeness of a new school, they must be tackled at that reality level first of all. The adolescent who, in the early years of infancy, learned that the world was a secure place is likely to find ways of coping with the sudden loss of self-confidence that comes with some setback in self-esteem. Her security will not be shaken to its foundations at, say, failure in an exam.
