Coping with Chronic Pain during Adolescence

Adolescence, a time of physical, social, and emotional transition, by definition is a period of heightened vulnerability. The central preoccupation in the developmental literature on adolescents is fixated on the struggle around identity formation—transition from child to adult, from girl or boy to woman or man. Health-related problems are capable of generating enormous psychic as well as interpersonal conflict in an adolescent. The need to conform and to be acceptable to peers is at its peak during this phase. Any threat to this developing sense of selfhood can pose challenges of extraordinary proportion to an already fragile individual.