MANY authors have shown that adolescent breakdown is often associated with emotional deprivation in childhood. Psychotherapeutic intervention before the personality becomes too fixed and rigid should offer a means of improvement through the creation of substitute empathetic relationships, and prognosis should be improved to the extent to which this is successful.
This hypothesis is tested through a follow-up study involving 100 adolescents, and the hypothesis is found proved in the diagnostic category of adolescent persona lity disorder, but of no apparent relevance in other groups.
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