Do adolescents have a critical period of identity development? How much identity activity is needed in each of the life domains, such as career, family, and ideology for "healthy" adolescent development? An interdisciplinary team of scholars and practitioners addresses these and related questions to examine what we know about adolescent identity formation and how this information can be effectively used to intervene with adolescents to provide them with better guidance about their life choices.

Adolescent Identity Treatment: An Integrative Approach for Personality Pathology is a ground breaking title that provides general and specific clinical strategies to help adolescents who lack an integrated identity. The authors have developed a treatment based on the integration of object relations theory, family systems, attachment, developmental neurobiology and cognitive behavioral approaches that focuses on clearing blockages to normal identity development and adaptive functioning. While most adolescents build satisfying interpersonal relationships, are successful in school and work and begin romantic relationships, there is a minority of adolescents who do not succeed in this and are at a high risk of developing problems in school, work and relationships, problems with affect regulation as well as engaging in a wide range of self-destructive behaviors. In addition to a description of the disorder and assessment, this manual offers extensive clinical examples and concrete interventions, with phase-specific treatment components, including a clear treatment frame, psychoeducation, environmental interventions (with a "Home Plan" that addresses self-care behaviors, responsibilities and improved boundaries that fosters the development of better relationships between the adolescent and family) and parenting strategies, all in the service of creating a space for the individual work with the adolescent.

This fully revised fourth edition of Identity in Adolescence: The Balance Between Self and Other presents four theoretical perspectives on identity development during adolescence and young adulthood and their practical implications for intervention. Ferrer-Wreder and Kroger consider adolescent identity development as the unique intersection of social and cultural forces in combination with individual factors that each theoretical model stresses in attempting to understand the identity formation process for contemporary adolescents. Identity in Adolescence addresses the complex question of how adolescent identity forms and develops during adolescence and young adulthood and serves as the foundation for entering adult life. The book is unique in its presentation of four selected models that address this process, along with cutting-edge research and the implications that each of these models hold for practical interventions. This new edition has been comprehensively revised, with five completely new chapters and three that have been extensively updated. New special topics are also addressed, including ethnic, sexual, and gender identity development, the role of technology in adolescent identity development, and ongoing identity development beyond adolescence. The book is essential reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying adolescent development, self and social identity within developmental psychology, social psychology and clinical psychology, as well as practitioners in the fields of child welfare and mental health services, social work, youth and community work and counselling.

What are the major self and identity concerns for early adolescents? What are the applications and interventions that can address those concerns, helping to ease the transition into later adolescence and adulthood? Providing a broad and interdisciplinary approach to studying the self, the contributors emphasize the practical implications of their work for understanding early adolescent self and identity and for designing interventions that facilitate development and adjustment. The book consists of four major sections, in which contributors address conceptual issues, school transitions, peer and behavioral problems, and intervention programs.

Identity is defined in many different ways in various disciplines in the social sciences and sub-disciplines within psychology. The developmental psychological approach to identity is characterized by a focus on developing a sense of the self that is temporally continuous and unified across the different life spaces that individuals inhabit. Erikson proposed that the task of adolescence and young adulthood was to define the self by answering the question: Who Am I? There have been many advances in theory and research on identity development since Erikson's writing over fifty years ago, and the time has come to consolidate our knowledge and set an agenda for future research. The Oxford Handbook of Identity Development represents a turning point in the field of identity development research. Various, and disparate, groups of researchers are brought together to debate, extend, and apply Erikson's theory to contemporary problems and empirical issues. The result is a comprehensive and state-of-the-art examination of identity development that pushes the field in provocative new directions. Scholars of identity development, adolescent and adult development, and related fields, as well as graduate students, advanced undergraduates, and practitioners will find this to be an innovative, unique, and exciting look at identity development.

Adolescenceâ€"beginning with the onset of puberty and ending in the mid-20sâ€"is a critical period of development during which key areas of the brain mature and develop. These changes in brain structure, function, and connectivity mark adolescence as a period of opportunity to discover new vistas, to form relationships with peers and adults, and to explore one's developing identity. It is also a period of resilience that can ameliorate childhood setbacks and set the stage for a thriving trajectory over the life course. Because adolescents comprise nearly one-fourth of the entire U.S. population, the nation needs policies and practices that will better leverage these developmental opportunities to harness the promise of adolescenceâ€"rather than focusing myopically on containing its risks. This report examines the neurobiological and socio-behavioral science of adolescent development and outlines how this knowledge can be applied, both to promote adolescent well-being, resilience, and development, and to rectify structural barriers and inequalities in opportunity, enabling all adolescents to flourish.