If you wish to converse with me, define your terms.

- Voltaire

One day a sixteen-year-old member of one of my adolescent groups reported the following incident: 'I was standing on the street corner and the light was red. My Parent said, "Don't cross", my Child said, "Go ahead anyway", and while I was debating what to do the light turned green.'

The years of adolescence are like this. Teenagers are confronted with big and little decisions. Yet, often they seem to have to wait for circumstances to make their decisions for them, because they are not really free to decide for themselves. Their brain is nearing its prime development. Their body is mature. But legally and economically they are dependent, and their attempts at emancipated action are frequently undercut by the realization that they can't really make their own decisions anyway, so what's the use of making good decisions. They feel they may as well drift along through adolescence and wait for the light to turn green. The Adult does not develop under these circumstances. Suddenly when they are legally emancipated they feel adrift, they don't know what they want to do, and many of them pass time hoping something will happen, someone will come along, somehow something will turn them on. Yet, at this point, one-fourth of their life has passed.

Because of external and internal pressures the transactions of the teenager frequently fall back into the old Child-Parent patterns. In adolescence the feelings of the Child replay in greatly amplified form as the hormones turn on and as the adolescent turns away from his parents as the principal source of stroking to his own age group for stroking of a new kind. The not ok tapes come on with increasing frequency, but the coping techniques learned in childhood to minimize the not ok now can be dangerous. The seductive cuteness of the little girl must now be brought under control to guard against new developments, both external and internal. The 'mine is better' boisterousness of the little boy must be modified in the name of manners as the adolescent learns the painful process of self-control. Communication has to be relearned and revised. The adolescent is pushed out on the stage with a new manuscript in his hands, which he has never read, and the lines don't come off too well at first. He is like a plane shooting ahead at full speed, between converging cloud layers. Below, and rising fast, are the boiling clouds of sexual urges and the rebellious struggling for independence; above are the hovering and lowering clouds of parental anxiety and disapproval. He feels things are closing in, and he desperately looks for an opening.

The central difficulty is that he and his parents often are still working under the terms of the old Parent-Child contract. As much as he sees himself as a grownup, he still feels like a child. Parents may suggest what they believe to be a perfectly reasonable course of action and are frustrated, baffled, and hurt over his angry rebuttal, hooking their Child. Often the problem is that he mistakes his external parents for his internal Parent. He cannot hear the mother and father of his teenage years because the old tapes play back the mother and  father of the three-year-old, with all the hand slapping, horrified looks, and thunderous 'no's' of those early years. The external stimulus hits the Parent, Adult, and Child of the teenager simultaneously.

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The question is, Which one will handle the transaction? Throughout childhood the Child is continually activated, even though there are, depending on the individual, a vast number of Adult transactions. The Child is extremely vulnerable, or 'hookable', in this emotionally charged time of life. Whereas the Child responses of the little person could quickly be rationalized as 'childish', those same responses now become threatening and disintegrating to the parents. The door slamming of the five-year-old can be rather terrifying if the slammer is a six-foot-tall fifteen-year old. The sulk of the little girl is seen as ugly and infuriating in the teenager. What may have been seen in the little boy as a habit of 'making up stories' appears in the adolescent under the heading of 'lies'. The early recordings are the same. Many of the coping techniques of the Child continue in the adolescent years. Bertrand Russell writes of this:

So many things were forbidden me that I acquired the habit of deceit, in which I persisted up to the age of twenty-one. It became second nature to me to think that whatever I was doing had better be kept to myself, and I have never quite overcome the impulse to hide what I am reading when anybody comes into the room. It is only by a certain effort of the will that I can overcome this impulse. {1}

This 'effort of the will' is the Adult. The Adult can identify the old recordings. It can also recognize the inappropriateness and ineffectiveness of their replay in adolescence. The central need, then, is to keep the Adult in control of this adult-size body so that the realities in the present can gain priority over the realities of the past.

What constitutes the central work of treatment is the freeing up of the Adult in both the teenager and his parents in order that an Adult-Adult contract may be drawn. Without an emancipated Adult, life is an unbearable double bind for both. The problem of the adolescent is that inside he has a strong troublemaking Parent, and he is forced to live in the setting in which that Parent developed, where the Parent within is reinforced by the parents without. As parents become threatened and fearful, they find themselves turning more and more frequently to their own Parent for Grandparent solutions, which can be as inadequate as trying to make a jet plane run with hay. Both the parents and the teenager are so threatened that the Adult is decommissioned in both. The teenager acts out Child feelings and the parents, fearful of letting their feelings take over, most often turn the transaction over to the Parent (grandmother and grandfather). No common reality exists without an Adult-Adult contract, and communication ceases.

I have long admired the Hebrew ceremony of the Bar Mitzvah, which is the symbolic and public drawing of a new contract, or a statement of mutual expectations. At the end of the thirteenth year the Jewish boy becomes a Jewish man, assuming responsibility and religious duty. He does not do so without preparation. This moment has been a goal long established, and he is prepared for the acceptance of responsibility by rigorous training and discipline as prescribed by Hebrew law. It is unfortunate that a similar event cannot take place in the life of every teenager. I know one non-Jewish family who conducted a similar ceremony in their home at the time of their son's fourteenth birthday. He was told that he now was responsible for all his ethical decisions. He accepted this responsibility seriously, although he expressed some concern about the consequences. It will no doubt work well in this case because this young man is prepared for this responsibility.

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He has been helped to make ethical decisions since early childhood, and he has observed his parents making difficult decisions based in their own binding ethical values.

Frequently teenagers are asked, 'What are you going to be?' It is difficult to apply much creative thought to this important question if computer time is continually filled with the unfinished business of 'what I have been'. Mirra Komarovsky uses the allegory of people travelling on a bus in which all the occupants, including the driver, have seats facing the rear. This symbolizes somehow the travels of people through life. But it seems to describe best the travels of the student who at the same time that he is gathering a great storehouse of academia must, in respect to his emotional development, often be looking backwards, not forwards. {2}

If this past is understood and filed away, the computer will not continuously be loaded with archaic business but will be free to be creative and get on with the encounters of reality. The teenager then can get on a bus where the seats face forward. This way he can have a valid, free choice, can see where he is going and make difficult decisions about where he wants to go rather than accepting fatalistically a route that he didn't choose.

In my practice I have several teenage groups, which meet weekly. The parents also have opportunities to meet in the evening. The central problem is communication. Repeated crossed transactions have brought conversation to a halt just after 'pass the butter' and 'I need ten dollars for the weekend'. The first step in treatment is to teach both teenagers and parents the language and concepts of P-A-C. This is an efficient sorting device, bringing order out of a mass of chaotic feelings and parental injunctions, which exist in both the teenager and his parents. Parents are a mixture of fear, guilt, uncertainty, and wishful thinking. Teenagers are a mixture of fear, guilt, uncertainty, and wishful thinking. Given a language to explain it, they find they have a great deal in common; namely a Parent, Adult, and Child. One of the most neutralizing discoveries for the teenager is to find that his parents have a Child, with just as many painful recordings as his own. With this new language the sea of troubles begins to calm. One of my teenage patients said, 'It's really great to be able to talk about ideas at home, and not just people and things.' Another said, 'The really great thing about P-A-C is that it takes our relationship out of the I-You and breaks it up into six people." In many families the members seem to be prisoners of each other. The youngster says, 'You cannot dump parents because you have nowhere else to go.' The parent says, 'I would love my daughter if she were my neighbor, but I can't stand to live in the same house with her.' Through P-A-C this can be talked about as a common predicament, and joint efforts can be turned to not only making the family a bearable group in which to live, but a pleasant and exciting one.

It is not always a simple matter, however, to transform a family from a battleground to a scene of domestic tranquillity. Some teenagers do not easily give up their games of 'It's All Them', even though they may have some insight into its operation. Parents also like to hang on to 'Look How Hard I've Tried'. When a home situation is particularly uproarious and hostile, an effective way of ringing the bell on the games is to hospitalize the adolescent for a brief period, such as a week.

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This not only underlines the fact that something is wrong at home, but takes the adolescent out of the Child-provoking home setting and places him in a supportive environment where he can activate his Adult. Then he can begin to learn. At the same time his parents are taught P-A-C and directed to come to the parents' group. When the adolescent is released from the hospital, he joins the outpatient groups for continued treatment.

Unfortunately, treatment sometimes gets off to a bad start by the way in which the teenager is brought to treatment. One boy said, 'I was pushed into this group and it hooked my not ok Child - I didn't know I was coming until the morning of the day I first came here. We are shoved in here because we are bad; but then you teach us P-A-C and we feel better. However, when we go home we are either made fun of or made uncomfortable. When I try to explain things my old man just cuts it all off with, "Knock off that P-A-C crap and do as I tell you!" I would really feel better if I could see my parents were equally interested - learning what we are learning. If they only didn't come on in the same old way.' The parents of the boy did not attend the parents' group in the beginning. They finally were persuaded to do so and were impressed with how quickly the relationship improved at home.

Some of the most brilliant formulations come from my teenagers. It is as if eight or ten computers are processing data in the group with the aim of extracting new meanings. For instance, in one session a teenager said, 'I think the Parent is more interested in the institution of the Parent than in the whole individual. Only the Adult can understand that my Child has feelings which are important, too.' On another occasion a teenager stated: 'I think the thinking part of us is a Johnny come-lately. The feeling part of us was there first. "I feel" is more encompassing than "I think". "I think" you can back off from, but "I feel" involves my whole self.' Another said, 'Only my Adult can honour my father and mother; my Child is too mad.'

Many parents are afraid to trust the Adult in their youngsters with hard decisions. One father of a teenage daughter said, When she was five and played with a razor I had to take it away from her. Now you see her playing with another kind of razor and what do you say - go ahead and play with it?' The difference is that at five she did not have enough data to comprehend fully the possible fatal consequence of cutting herself with the razor. But at fourteen the teenager has, or can have, sufficient data to understand all kinds of consequences - that is, if the parents have been busy through the years acquainting him with values, realities, the importance of people, and his own worth.

Trust in the Adult is the only constructive way to confront the many anxiety-provoking pronouncements the teen-ager can bring home. If the teenage daughter comes home and announces woefully, 'I'm pregnant', it probably will knock the needle off the P-A-C seismograph. The Parent in the parents will rise up in great indignation and judgment; their Child will be tearful and sad (another failure) and angry (how could you do this to us?) and guilty (as the internal Parent whips the Child with its disapproval). What in the parents will meet daughter's announcement? If the Parent and Child stand wringing their hands, one might say the Adult is out boiling water or figuring out what to do. The Adult can determine what part of the Parent and Child can be externalized as constructive data and still contribute something to the daughter's resources for handling this difficult situation. One of the most powerful contributions to inner strength is for the daughter to see her parents struggle with their own desperate feelings and still keep the Adult in control, planning its course on the basis of what is real and what is loving.

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She will be needing a great deal of this kind of control herself, in the months ahead. The Adult can process all the realities: the feelings of the parents and of the daughter, the pain of the internal dialogue in both, the extreme not ok replaying in both, the shame on the family which both must bear, the difficulty of doing what has to be done, the decision for or against marriage, the decision for or against adoption - in short, the consequences.

In many families an even greater trauma occurs when the daughter announces, 'I'm going out tonight with John. He is a Negro.' The social stigma on interracial marriages is usually far more severe than that on premarital pregnancy. Some parents have handled this by bellowing, 'The hell you are! You let me hear you've been even talking to that boy and I'll bash your silly head in.' In that head, of course, is the knowledge that John is class president, comes from a good family, is going to college, and in fact, is quite ideal along with being black. Adding to the dilemma is the fact that in high school she was taught about equality; the class tried to figure out how to end racial prejudice and condemned bigotry. By handling the transaction with the Parent, the parents drive the wedge farther into the split between reality and the perception of it. There is another way to handle this - with the Adult, which sees reality not as inimical but as an essential part of the evaluation of what to do. It takes a person of extraordinary perception and integrity to carry out an Adult-Adult biracial relationship. The fact is that society does not yet approve. Neither do the relatives. Neither do most of the church members, despite official pronouncements to the contrary. Some day they may. Does this couple have a strong enough Adult to build a relationship of dignity under these conditions? Some couples have. Can this one? A realistic view of the consequences is the only way to handle this situation. There is a risk, but there is also a possibility of a strengthened Adult, preparing itself for full independence.

One example of the inadequacy of certain parental edicts is in the matter of sex outside of marriage. The red flags of pregnancy and venereal disease, waved more or less successfully by parents through the generations, now both have come down because of the discoveries of science. There is still the very real consequence of bringing shame on the family, although this is not as important as it once was, since today non-marital sexual experience is seen with a positive attitude among many of the parents' peer group. It also is glorified in Playboy, in advertising, in the movies, and, in fact, in many aspects of the world of grownups. The Adult view can be quite different as it asks the question, 'What does this do to persons?' The Rev Forrest A. Aldrich phrases the predicament in this way:

Many young people take the attitude that if two people agree to sex and both agree that it is not to be a lasting involvement, and no one is hurt, then what harm is it? The hurt is that something of value - sex - has been devalued.

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It has been casual and not worth all that could be derived from it. The point is to get through the experience safely. The sin of premarital sex is not that something was given, but that not enough was given. {3}

There are no doctrinal absolutes except the evil of using persons as things, even if one of those persons is oneself. If, in the long run, a transitory alliance produces a lack of self esteem and a reinforcement of the not ok position, then sex outside of marriage has provided only a physical release from tension and has not produced the ongoing ecstasy of two people who share unlimited liability for each other. How can one honour this relationship in an unlimited way when there are many others who have a prior claim on one's devotion? Also, many girls report that the experience is unpleasant and they are unable to reach orgasm. 'It's supposed to be so great," said one girl. 'I don't get it.' One boy on being asked if his girl friend reached orgasm said, 'Oh, I couldn't ask her that. I didn't know her that well." Sexual intercourse without personal intimacy can only result in a loss of self-esteem. This is true also in marriage.

A splendid book, which examines all of the realities related to sex that confront adolescents, as well as their parents, is Bishop James Pike's Teen-Agers and Sex. His central point is that sexual involvement bears with it an ethical responsibility:

We are dealing not with principles and codes but with the direct effects one's decision may have on other persons, for good or for ill. As Martin Buber, the philosopher theologian, has so well pointed out, our relationship to God is not I-it, but I-Thou. Therefore any relationship between one human being and another should be I. Thou: a fundamental moral norm that persons are not to be treated as things. {4}

Whatever the decision in each particular case, the point is that the decision be made responsibly. Bishop Pike continues:

In the long run, even more fundamental than what precisely our sons and daughters will and will not do is what they understand to be the meaning of the sex act itself - a sacrament, an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. The physical act not only expresses the spiritual and emotional involvement of a man and woman; it is also a means whereby that involvement is strengthened. It is a good thing. Any restrictions upon it which might be found sound, either from an absolutist or existentialist approach, should be based on the premise that it is a good thing, so good a thing that it should not be utilized under certain circumstances. If restraint is based on the fact that sexual intercourse is so good a thing, rather than on the notion that it is so bad a thing, young people will enter marriage with a much more wholesome attitude, with much greater likelihood of sexual fulfillment in marriage.

The problem remains: How can ideas such as the foregoing be the subject of conversation between an adolescent and a grown-up if the two are separated by silence, by awkwardness, by mistrust or exasperation, by the teenager's dogmatic refusal to talk to Mum or Dad ('Why should I? I know the pitch!')? The following conversation between myself and a fifteen-year-old girl illustrates a way in which P-A-C can be used to talk about the complicated relationship problems, including sex, which confront teenagers.

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At the time of this interview this girl had been seen four times in individual treatment sessions and eight times in treatment groups. This is an individual session. 'D' stands for Doctor; 'S' stands for Sally (not her real name):

S: You know, you're sounding just like a psychiatrist - of course, you are, but it's just so typical.

D: is that bad?

S: Well, it's just like a television programme that I just despise when they show these psychiatric programmes. I hate it. And I am sounding just like a typical patient. I mean, I really am, I know it.

D: Why don't you talk about P-A-C?

S: Oh, I can't today. I can't use it, I am not using it now. I am dealing with everything totally, completely wrong.

D: Do you know what you're saying?

S: No.

D: You're saying to this guy that's acting like a psychiatrist, 'I dare you to change me.'

Isn't that what you're saying?

S: When did I say that to you?

D: Well, that's what you are implying. I ask you, why don't you use your P-A-C, and you say, 'I am not using it, I am not going to use it, I dare you to make me use it.'

S: I didn't say forever, I just said for today I'm not using it and I don't feel like using it.

I'm nervous, that's it. I've been nervous for a couple of days.

D: So you want to play nervous today.

S: No, I don't want to play anything. I want a stronger tranquillizer.

D: You want a stronger tranquillizer?

S: Why not? I need a stronger tranquillizer. I shouldn't have come today; you know, I didn't want to come.

D: You want a stronger tranquillizer because you are too lazy to use your P-A-C.

S: I have been using it, and I did try, but I am short-tempered and I -

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D: So what's new?

S: So what's new? (laughs) That wasn't nice. But I mean I'm very short-tempered and I wasn't when I got out of the hospital.

D: Is this the only option you have, to be short-tempered?

S: No, it isn't, and I try not to be, but sometimes I am.

D: You blow off the handle?

S: Not extremely, but I find myself getting mad and then when I keep it inside of me it makes me kind of shaky. Do you understand? ... I hate everything about this and I hate everybody today. I'm going to quit psychiatry. Now doesn't that sound typical patient?

D: With a smile - I'm glad you're smiling.

S: Oh, I can smile about it. I'm... it's making me nervous. But do you know what I do?

D: What?

S: If I smile, then I laugh, and then I get very upset, and -

D: Can you tell me what's upsetting you?

S: No!

D: Are you on the verge of tears?

S: I hope not. No, I'm fine. I'm upset today, I knew - I hate this. This is getting us nowhere - why don't we just stop my therapy and I'll take pills. What's the matter with me besides headaches and the regular bunch of stuff that seems to be - What is my problem? D: You don't want to grow.

S: That's what you told me one time. You said I didn't want to grow up. Now that wasn't fair.

D: I don't know what 'up' is, I said 'grow', you know, open your mind to some new thoughts.

S: To what thoughts?

D: P-A-C. S: I opened my mind to that when I was in the hospital. I came home and I was feeling pretty good. D: Why isn't your Adult plugged in today?

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S: I don't know.

D: All you can talk about is I am nervous, I can't. I shouldn't have come here today, you're an old psychiatrist and I'm a patient.'

S: Well, that's what we are today.

D: Well, that was a real statement. That came through the Adult. That's what we are today.

S: I can't be P-A-C every single day.

D: Well, it wouldn't be a bad idea. I am.

S: OK, that's fine if you can do it, but I can't do it right now.

D: Oh, why not?

S: Because I'm -

D: Your Child likes to take over.

S: Well, every once in a while I guess maybe it happens. I haven't been using P-A-C all my life or even for a year or anything. I don't know.

D: How are you and your daddy getting along?

S: I have been - I have been very good to my parents.

D: How's your mother?

S: Fine-we have been closer than we have ever been, and I have been affectionate to both of them and I have been trying to be some sort of a daughter that they can like now because, I don't know, I am developing a guilt complex about -1 feel that I have been so otten and everything.

D: Well, let's devote about sixty seconds to that, because I can't see that gets you anywhere - thinking about how rotten you are.

S: If I keep on with this psychiatry I am going to be psychoanalysing myself from here to doomsday.

D: Is that bad?

S: Well, yes.

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D: Not if it turns up some answers.

S: No, it doesn't always. I have a very close friend and he's almost insane, I think. He won't go to a psychiatrist, I have known him for years, and he's so far out of reality it's pathetic, and he psychoanalyses himself all the time. He reads books.

D: Is he a teenager?

S: Yes.

D: Well, it's one thing to psychoanalyse yourself without tools, but you have P-A-C to psychoanalyze yourself, and P-A-C will give you the answers you need. S: Well, still - OK, I'll tell you something. I don't know whether or not I want to be, to use my Adult all the time. And I try to use it most of the time. Sometimes I just don't want to, it's just kind of a battle, it's almost being actually perfect, it's handling everything the correct way at the right time. It's almost not human sometimes.

D: I know what you mean. Of course we have said before that your Child is what makes you charming and delightful to others, so it isn't that we want to kick the Child out, but let's say that P-A-C is always around, I mean the Parent, the Adult, and the Child are always present. It's true the Child may crowd out the Adult and the emotions take over, or the Parent may crowd out the Adult and the Parent takes over. I guess the trick is to always keep the Adult plugged in even though the Child is playing. If the Child wants to play, let the Adult go along to make sure that everything remains appropriate, because the way that girls get into trouble is when the Child takes over and plays, but plays games that are dangerous. Right?

S: Yes. You mean like being a teaser, something like this?

D: Well -

S: Not knowing when to stop?

D: Yes, right, not being able to - When the Adult is unable to say no to the Child and make it stick, any of us is in trouble.

S: That means for anything, not just for -

D: That's true. Everything. The Child may want to take something that doesn't belong to him or the Child may want to use another person. The Child may want to manipulate another person.

S: Oh, stop talking that way.

D: I have been watching small children manipulate grownups.

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S: I manipulate - that's wrong. Right?

D: Well, I don't know whether wrong is the appropriate word, but if you manipulate others and it frustrates them or makes them feel bad or upsets them, then I'd say this is something you want to get rid of. Or, if I allow myself to be manipulated, I am going to be upset. If I manipulate others and I don't recognize it but they come at me, then I am upset. See? So where did we learn to manipulate or to allow ourselves to be manipulated? At the age of three, or two.

S: Well how does, I mean how does it keep on because I was manipulating my father and still do to some degree, I don't know maybe you don't call it manipulation or manipulating people but I could - why, yes, I could. And he allowed himself to be - because I don't know what it was, maybe it was -I manipulated him, maybe I didn't.

D: Well, what goes on between you and your father probably does have elements of manipulation, but part of it is father's enjoyment of his teenage daughter, you know, he enjoys seeing you happy and enjoys seeing you do things, and he enjoys giving you things, that's part of being a father of a delightful teenage daughter, but you can take advantage of his generosity, you know, take advantage of his feelings, and this isn't good for you or him either because it leads you into kind of a hassle.

S: I did that.

D: What did you do?

S: I took advantage of him and took advantage of his feelings. I expected to get everything I wanted, I expected every -well, I expected quite a bit and yet he had so much affection for me and I wouldn't let him even touch me unless I was in the mood. I would move away from him and I was actually cruel sometimes. This was even going on in the hospital and then one night I said something horrible when he was bringing me to the hospital, when he was going to go down in the elevator and he wanted to hug me, I think, and I moved away from him and I told him not to do it, and then I just kind of laughed and I said, 'Frustrates you, doesn't it?' as if I was really trying to hurt him, and he said, 'Yes', and he agreed with me. I felt badly then.

D: Then did you hug him?

S: No.

D: That's a pity, because your Adult would have let your Child hug him because your Adult could have a value that not to hurt anyone is important.

S: I try not to now though, if he wants to hug me I let him. If I don't feel like showing much affection I just let him hug me and that's it. But I have been showing him affection.

D: You don't want to hug him back?,

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S: Well, now I'll go and kiss him on the cheek or something, like this-, and I will show him some affection and I will be very nice and I have done this to my mother, too. I have done this purposefully to show them affection. Well, it wasn't a total act because I mean I felt

D: You see, the problem here with affection with the opposite sex is the Child is afraid of s-e-x whether it's a feeling or what others may think. Your internal Parent is watching your Child and your Child is fearful of s-e-x because of the internal Parent, but your Adult can say, Look it's perfectly appropriate, perfectly proper for you to give your father affection in the form of a physical embrace and if you can do it, it is a form of mastery of the Adult over the Child.

S: I have been doing it.

D: Good.

S: I have been doing it very well.

D: But you know it's a problem for teenagers.

S: Well, well I didn't know that.

D: It really is.

S: Is it?

D: There is a great big word in here called t-a-b-o-o.

S: I don't see why.

D: No? This has existed down through the generations -t-a-b-o-o. It's OK for affection with s-e-x if there are no blood ties. That's; a great big taboo. But this is data that needs to be out in the open. I find that I can help any teenager to be perfectly natural and affectionate and outgoing with his parents if I can help them to get the data out in the open to process it with their Adult. And you can't be affectionate with the opposite sex, period, you know; it's as if you can't really be discriminating, selective. Once they see it, have the data out in the open, then they are free to be affectionate at the Adult level and affectionate at the Child level and the Adult will take care of the Parent. The Child doesn't have to be afraid of the Parent because the Adult is processing the data with regard to what is real. Parental data is dated, you know. What age?

S: Three.

D: That's right, and that's entirely different from what's real today. And besides, as we both know, you have a handsome daddy and when I see you two together and I see him looking at you I can see that you are the pride and joy of his life.

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S: I'm not. I'm so rotten it's pathetic, sometimes.

D: Well, why are you rotten?

S: Because I have given him such misery. I feel sorry. He's a sucker.

D: Well, you probably love him so much that you - you told me once that you have to do these things in order to sort of keep a distance, not get too close.

S: Yes, sometimes he, you know - that's unfortunate in some ways too - it's not boys, really I will try. I have a lot of friends who are boys and it's something about them that I don't like, because they do think a lot about sex and usually a lot of them when they look at me, well they wanted something from me, and -

D: How does that make you feel?

S: Not very good, I don't know, I don't like to be touched, unless I want to be touched and boys do like to touch girls and that bothers me, and I have an awful hard time saying no. I can say no but I just get scared and generally they get the idea, but if one doesn't, I mean I'm going to be cooked, so I've got to watch it.

D: Well, let's see, there are three sets of data always. The Child wants to play, the Parent says 'you be ashamed' or 'you behave yourself or 'you'd better watch out', or you know the Parent comes out with a number of formulas about dealing with a situation like this. The Adult will take into consideration that the Child wants to play, the Parent wants to be disapproving, the Parent has a long list of standards to put into the picture, but the reality art which the Adult is in tune with is: What does the transaction mean to you in reality? For instance, what do you get out of it? What are the dangers? What are the risks? What are the consequences? Do you remember in the group the girls who were in trouble were completely blind to consequences. Of course, we know the Adult is the one who deals with consequences, the Child is not interested in consequences, the Child just wants to play. How many of these teenagers who were in trouble examined consequences carefully before they made the decision? Well, I'll tell you how many - zero. There are others who have a good Adult. There are a few, I've seen them around. Many of them learned in the group here to develop an Adult.

S: For that, well it is hard to learn, but those, those are moral values. You get that from your parents, usually. I did. And you learn from each other. Teenagers do talk among themselves.

D: Well, those are moral values, but they are realistic or Adult values of 'Let's don't get hurt* or if you are the most important person in the world, and you should be to yourself, in a way, you don't want to hurt that person and you don't want to get into situations that can louse up, you know, and so on.

S: Do you know what I do?

D: What?

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S: I have a tendency to tease, in fact I have been called a teaser before by boys and that's not very good.

D: Well, what do they mean? Do they mean that you are leading them on?

S: Well, sort of, with a gesture or look or just being there or just doing something, sometimes I don't know it and sometimes I do it deliberately.

D: Well, there are two ways to look at this. One is, you are being charming and attractive and delightful to be with, which is good; the other is, you are being seductive which - S: - is bad and sometimes I even do that.

D: Well, do you know where you learned to do that? Seduction is a game that is learned very early by little girls because it gets them goodies so they are taught early

S: When?

D: Daddy looks at the little doll and she acts cute and daddy takes out a piece of candy and takes out a toy and so she is paid off for being cute.

S: (laughing): Maybe that's where I learned. It's my father's fault then.

D: There's no fault there; it's enjoyment for father, and daughter.

S: Yes, but you just don't do it to other

D: Well, it's kind of fun, isn't it?

S: Oh, yes.

D: This is where if the Adult is along with the Child when the Child is playing, like playing seduction, or playing tease or whatever word you want to call it, the Adult will deal with the transaction when the boy makes his pitch -

S: It's not just boys, it's men. If a man looks at me I am flattered, sometimes, if it is not a filthy look, and I actually, sometimes, most of the time, want them to, but yet when they do half of the time or more than half of the time I actually, you know, am not insulted, but get kind of frightened, or not frightened, not usually frightened but I wouldn't look at him twice.

D: This is what he is saying and what you are saying: he is saying, 'Look, I would like to use you', and you're saying, 'I know it you so-and-so, but you're not going to get away with it.' So here we are back to manipulation, you know.

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You like to play tease or seduction because it gets you gold stamps. Here we are back to transactional trading stamps again. You say it builds your morale; well, you don't really need this. Every woman plays this game, and it does build the female image, the female morale, but the guy that's giving you the gold stamps wants something in return, you know. And this is what the Adult has to be prepared to deal with so it's - some of these individuals have very attractive Gold Stamps, you know, they've got fourteen carat gold with lace all around them and it's real difficult you know - big, handsome, broad shoulders and stuff, but all you have to do is, just like our discussion here, get all the data out in the open and you have a choice once you have processed it through the Adult. You don't have to go all the way, like some girls, because that is their only option. You have a good Adult, you have the option of playing the game up to a point and then saying, Well, it's nice knowing you and then whatever -

S: Oh, that scares me, I could never let that happen, unless it was by force because it

scares me, I don't want anything like that.

D: Why be scared?

S: I don't know but it scares me.

D: Maybe you have to be scared in order to keep your Child from getting out of control,

but once you develop confidence in this Adult of yours, and you have a good Adult, you

have it made, because your Adult can handle every transaction, even though the Child is

enjoying the transaction the Adult still is calling the signals and this is what will save you.

S: I see my time is up. I'll see you when the group starts again. Goodbye.

D: OK, and remember, I'm ok - you're ok. (End of Interview)

Through the troubling years of adolescence, when young people sometimes seem to turn a deaf ear to the words of their anxious parents, there nevertheless is a hunger to hear and experience reassurances of Mum and Dad's love and concern. The longing for this reassurance was stated in a compelling way recently by my five-year-old daughter, Gretchen. When Mother arrived on the scene, Gretchen was maintaining a precarious balance as she walked along the narrow edge of a brick flower enclosure. Mother said, 'You be careful or you'll fall down into those flowers.' Gretchen said, 'Do you care about the flowers or about me?' The 'five-year-old' in the adolescent asks the same question, only he does not state it in so many words. Parents who are sensitive to this unstated plea and who, through acts of love, concern, restraint, and respect, demonstrate repeatedly It Is You We Care About will find the years of adolescence can produce rewards and surprises far beyond their expectations.