Adolescent Alienation
 Internalizing
problems
• Over-controlled: families that exercise tight
psychological control
• Often experience distress
 Externalizing
problems
• Under-controlled: families where parental
monitoring and control is lacking
• Often do not experience distress
 Major depressive disorder:
• Depressed or irritable mood for most of the day,
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
nearly every day
Reduced interest or pleasure in all or almost all
activities
Significant weight loss or gain; decrease in appetite
Insomnia or oversleeping
Psychomotor agitation or retardation
Low energy or fatigue
Feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt
Diminished ability to think or concentrate
Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide
 Adolescents
have higher rates of
depressed mood than adults or children
 Episodes of depressed mood before
adolescence are relatively rare
 Rates of depressed mood rise steeply
from age 10 to about 15-17, then decline
 Treatments:
• Medication
• Psychotherapy
 Different models of therapy
 Self-acceptance
 Self-esteem
1.
2.
Yes
No
50%
1
50%
2
 Suicide
attempts are usually preceded by
symptoms of depression
• But usually happen when symptoms are going
away
 Risk
factors:
• Family problems
• Relationship problems
• External factors: school
 Three
groups:
• Experiencing years of problems with family,
peers and teachers
• Struggle with mental illness such as depression
or bipolar
• Previously functioning well, but experience an
acute crisis
 Inexperience
is one contributing factor
to accidents
 Risk taking is also a major factor
 Solutions:
• Parental involvement and monitoring
• Drivers ed vs. Graduated driver licensing
 Three
kinds of criminal acts:
• Status offenses: violations of the law because
they are committed by juveniles
• Index crimes: serious crimes
 Property crimes: robbery, theft, arson
 Violent crimes: rape, assault, murder
• Nonindex crimes: less serious offenses like
illegal gambling and disorderly conduct
 Two
types of delinquency
• Life-course persistent delinquents: show a
pattern of problems from birth onward
• Adolescence-limited delinquents: no problems
in infancy, childhood, or adulthood
 Interventions:
• Individual therapy
• Group therapy
• Vocational training
• “Outward Bound” programs
• Scared Straight
 Problems
with interventions:
• Delinquents rarely welcome the opportunity to
participate in them
• Programs take place in adolescence, after a
pattern has already developed
 Programs
that do work:
• Multisystemic approach
 Two
types of runaways
• Intent runaways: those that intend to leave for a
long time
• Transient runaways: those that intend to be gone
for a limited amount of time
 Why
adolescents join gangs
• Low self-esteem
• Poor relationships with parents
• Unresolved ethnic identities