There was a time when adolescents were not given the place in society they deserved. The life path unfolded for individuals as childhood which led straight to adulthood. There was no place in between or no significance given to this important phase in life. However over time, adolescence emerged as an extremely important period of life where an individual makes a transition from childhood to becoming an adult. Hence, adolescent psychology was born.

While, changed living conditions throughout the world would have definitely contributed towards placing importance on adolescence, so has individual freedom of speech and thought. If you turn your memory back to four or five generations back, you will see how our ancestors got in to the institute of marriage as early as 12-13 years and bore children by about 14-15 yrs of age. However, with the revolutions that have since then taken place on earth and discoveries that have been made to keep the human race busy, such living conditions have dramatically changed as of today.

While people have learnt to respect others, they have also learnt to treat children and adolescence as individuals struggling to excel in life just as anybody else. With this realization, adolescence is given utmost importance in today's society in many aspects. As per the pioneers in the field, Stanley Hall is one of the first psychologists to come up with the theory of adolescence being a period of "storm and stress". Margaret Mead on the other hand attributed the changes an individual goes through during adolescence to one's culture and upbringing. Taking a different view of adolescence, Carol Gilligan claimed that there are differences sexes on moral reasoning development during adolescence. She further affirmed that male adolescents are driven by logical thinking and emotional detachments while female adolescents are driven by emotional attachment and passion.

Drawing from all theories that have been put forward about adolescence, today, psychologists around the world strive to help teenagers in various ways. The main focus of adolescent psychology aims at the individual's physical and mental well being and related social aspects.

Deriving from our common sense, we know that adolescence is a difficult time for everyone who surpasses it. It is a time of rage and confusion, excitement and exploration as well as a time of repression and suppression in some cases. It is the time an individual sees himself or herself as a separate person out in the world. Therefore, many important aspects of personality development such as identity formation, moral development and sexual orientation get finalized during this phase.

For anyone who is interested in becoming a high school or college counselor or for anyone who is simply interested in figuring out what is happening during this phase, adolescent psychology is a vital and a very interesting subject to follow through and study.



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