Adolescence and Socialization: Contemporary concepts of adolescent development and their implications for socialization

Abstract

The two words that make up the title of this work represent vast concepts. A complete summary of the definitions is impossible, and the choice between the many understandings is difficult but essential. This flexibility sometimes puts us in a tough spot. After getting lost among all of the theories, concepts, and proposals, I chose to be led by the first thing that came to mind after I received the generous invitation to participate in this work: the final chapter of Playing and Reality, entitled "Contemporary Concepts of Adolescent Development and their Implications for Higher Education". I was also led by the last conversation I had with Professor Roger Misés, when I interviewed him in the summer of 2010 on the topic of the most relevant pathologies in childhood (his own concept). We dedicated a large part of our time to discussing the effects of post-modernity on the development of people in today's world — the factors that make children and adolescents sick, as well as those that help them stay sane. The concepts adolescence and society are inseparable: each one determines the other. In our office of psychoanalysts today, the idea of moving away from the indelible Winnicottian legacy is unthinkable (internal reality - external reality), which, when considered in terms of adolescents, can be expressed by the following sentence: "There is no such thing as an adolescent..." (without society). I therefore borrowed the title of Winnicott's Chapter 11 to name this text, exchanging "higher education" for "socialization".