What is up with adolescence?
The teenaged years are chock-full of byzantine, intricately timed, molecular processes that have to be closely choreographed and deployed in a specific sequence to accomplish their sexual mission. Do these extraordinarily complex developmental processes go awry in some children as they evolve through adolescence? Do these changes create, or at least contribute, to future mental disorders? Is this one way to get at what are sometimes called genetic “trapdoors”—DNA-based psychopathologies that do not show up until a certain developmental milestone is reached? These are important issues. Most of the mental health challenges that emerge during puberty have real staying power. The symptoms tend to be more severe. Many go undetected in the early formative stages of the illness and comorbid disorders often develop. These complications can create problems in determining the correct diagnosis, and make it difficult for the clinician to select the treatment strategies with the greatest probabili
