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In the human life cycle there is no more dramatic period than the time of adolescence. It is an age of tremendous change in all phases of development. While the constitutional changes of puberty are fairly well understood, there is much to be learned about the emotional stress and strain of the adolescent years. In the main, the period of adolescence may be said to be an uncharted sea.Probably no writer has better expressed the meaning of adolesence than G. Stanley Hall:The phenomenon of adolescence is to be understood only as it is conceived as the entrance of the individual into the larger life of the race, so that the psyche reverberates with old phyletic memories lying deep within the shadowy reaches of the mind, far below the level of consciousness; feels the impulsion of irresistible forces which urge the boy or girl to express in their own person the myriad activities which have characterised the stirps in the long aeons of its development ; and is flushed with that mighty creative energy which has forced the living organism to ever higher forms of existence, and now impels the adolescent to be and do all things in his own person.1Of the several distinct periods of a life cycle there is none more profound in its meaning for the child or more likely to be disturbing to the parent. How, then, shall one proceed in an attempt to understand the adolescent? This investigation is not limited to a study of the physical structure of the adolescent. It is chiefly concerned with his functioning as a thinking, feeling person reacting as a whole to stimuli from without and within. It is his behavior, then, which is to be examined, and the start¬ ing point is his known misbehavior. This papers deals with adolescents who have behavior difficulties rather than with so-called normal adoles¬ cents, for if one can understand the known pathologic behavior one can progress toward an understanding of the unknown normal behavior, proceeding in accordance with the methods of modern medical science.

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