The Anxiety of Growing up: The Developmental Processes in Early Adolescence

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The author describes the anxieties associated with early adolescence. Anxieties concerning getting “bigger,” exposure to the adult world, sexuality, and the loss of the “mother” of childhood intensify the child’s inner conflicts and complicate the process of separation from the parent. These anxieties are examined in the context of developmental processes underlying early adolescence, a time of transient upheaval and rapid mood changes. A detailed case of a 13-year-old boy is presented to illustrate the struggle with growing up in relation to divorced parents, and the child’s relationship to his growing body is highlighted with the body the site of his struggle with food, weight, and general ambivalence around growing.