ajor areas of concern within this synthetic process. It will begin with a brief overview of adolescent theory, give various interpretations of separation-individuation, and will then focus on the process within the adolescent and parental experience. Following that, it will examine the works of Alvin Toffler and others in order to identify and hypothesize about the cultural shock and trauma experienced in the modern, urban society. Along with this, a handicapping situation will be analyzed under the rubric of separation-individuation. Finally, the paper will conclude with an explanation and assessment of the types of agencies adolescents may turn to during the difficulties experienced in separation-individuation.
One of the most basic, and clearest problems with the paradigmatic expression of adolescence is that of identity. In many technologically advanced cultures, adolescents (and others) are often confronted with the problems of self-definition (Kroger, 1989). The problems with identity may, in fact, be created by both cultural and developmental activities. Under these constraints, identity, the self, or the ego, express a differentiation in the balance between the personal and societal experience. The synthesis of past experiences from childhood, and the resulting new identify, require a completely new balance between the self and other components of personality. For instance,
that self of childhood, derived from significant identifications with important others, must, during adolescence, give way to a self derived from yet transcending those foundations--to a new whole greater than the sum of its parts (i.e. synthesis). Others now become important not merely as potential sources of identification but rather as independent agents, helping to recognize the 'real me' (Kroger, 1989, p. 7).
Thus, for the process of self-identification to work, adolescents must transcend the outmoded patterns of childhood and "inve...