Foreword

Abstract

Adolescence is an artificial state, created by the demands of complex modern society for further education. Youth is prolonged by the requirements of training, apprenticeship, school, college and university, and those who are better intellectually endowed than others face a time of further education that may last from at least three to six years after leaving school. As such they are privileged by the opportunities they can enjoy- and the student who belongs to the educational élite of today can belong to the social élite of tomorrow’s world. These privileged adolescents, however, have much need of understanding, sympathy, and help through the crises of development, be they social, psychological or environmental in cause-because the student of today is the most precious investment for the community’s future. Whether it be problems of academic wastage, stress, depression, adjustment to personal relationships or the demands of just simply growing up, the privileged adolescent has a difficult time in contemporary society.