[Psychological changes in adolescence].

The concept of adolescence refers to the psychological changes beginning with the first puberal transformations and ending with the maturity of the individual. Adolescence is divided into three phases: Early adolescence coincides with the period of major somatic transformations. It is characterized by maladjustment to the new situation, manifested by attitude of rebellion, great intellectual avidity, affective inestability, relative sexual ambivalence and, socially, by a tendency towards gregariousness. Middle adolescence is characterized by great intellectual capacity, replanting on philosophic, religious, etc., principles, and tendency to introversion. The final phase usually includes the sedimentation of the earlier process with progressive acquisitions of the characteristics of maturity. These three classical stages are influenced by the unifying role of mediums of communication, difficult social and economical conditions, which provoke loss of values.