We cannot understand human functioning without a clear appreciation of how emotions and physiology are inextricably interrelated, and how individuals’ personality development influences their body structure and can even determine what constitutes stress for them and creates strains on their physiological apparatus.

The adolescent lives with a vibrant sensitivity that carries to ecstatic heights and lowers to almost untenable depths. For some, the emotional stability achieved in childhood and the security of the family attachments contain the amplitude of the oscillations and permit a fairly steady direction; whereas others must struggle to retain a sense of unity and a modicum of ego control.

The lengthy developmental process as a dependent apprentice in living draws to a close as individuals attain an identity and the ability to live intimately with a member of the opposite sex, and contemplate forming families of their own. They have attained adult status with the completion of physical maturation, and, it is hoped, they have become sufficiently well integrated and emotionally mature to utilize the opportunities and accept the responsibilities that accompany it.

Occupation and personality traits are intimately related.

Along with the hazards and the need for realignment of personality functioning, the marriage brings with it new opportunities for self-fulfillment and completion.

The topic of marital adjustment involves the requisite shifts within each person—within the personality of each—that make possible the necessary interrelationship that proximates a coalition; it concerns the finding of reciprocally interrelating roles that permit the meshing of activities with minimal friction; it includes the reorganization of the family patterns which each spouse learned at home, and which may involve differing ethnic and social class patterns, into a workable social system; it concerns how the childhood family romance of each partner can find consummation.

Although the first-born are in a minority, they require our attention for they usually present a more critical experience to the parents, profoundly altering their lives, bringing new sensations and awareness, and creating problems and questions for which they seek more guidance.

These are a very long fifteen months. During no other period of life is the person so transformed both physically and developmentally. These are the months when the foundations are laid, not only for future emotional stability, but also for basic though global character traits and for intellectual development. No part of life experience will be as solidly incorporated in the individual, become so irrevocably a part of a person, as infancy.

Although a smooth passage from fifteen to thirty-six months is not impossible, it is unlikely. The toddler’s developmental situation almost inevitably creates difficulties for both child and parents. The extent and nature of the problems, and just when they arise, vary with the child, the parents’ sensitivities, and the child-rearing practices they utilize.