The adolescent personality and adult maturity, competence and quality of marital relations associated with paternal competence were assessed by a longitudinal study of highly educated fathers. Paternal competence was rated by the fathers and their wives. It is directly related to adolescent psychological adjustment and adult maturity and psychological health, a wide range of other adult competencies, and marital characteristics like happiness, adequacy of communication, sexual compatibility, and the competence of the wife as a mother.

Failure of psychologists to provide a comprehensive and valid model of healthy growth that is related to the adaptive problems with which counselors are concerned has limited the usefulness of much psychological research to practitioners. A developmental dimensional model of maturing is presented that has received some transcultural and longitudinal validation. Specific principles, induced from such research and from existing psychological research more generally, provide guidelines about how to encourage healthy growth. Recent evidence demonstrates that the psychological maturity of an adolescent is one of the most powerful predictors of his adult mental health and vocational adaptation, and that adult maturity is a powerful predictor of vocational adaptation, sexual pleasure, and marital sexual compatibility.

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