Leaving home, and the adolescent family therapist.

Serious psychiatric problems of adolescence can be viewed as breakdowns at the prospect of adulthood, when "leaving home" begins to have real meaning, wherever the young person actually lives. Most young people seem to cope well enough with this process, but crises develop in those families where the growing child senses that it is too soon to grow up and leave, in case the parents could not survive in the "empty nest". I describe how a therapist gradually develops such a point of view.