By Royal E. Alsup, Ph.D.

Friendship is of utmost importance in the lives of adolescents. It is through friendships adolescents learn interpersonal skills which help them to get their belonging, safety, security, trust and hope needs fulfilled. Three main developmental tasks in adolescence are to become capable of self-disclosure (to reveal private feelings and thoughts to a trusted person), to be able to disagree with their peers and work through conflicts while maintaining their own boundaries and to develop the ability to experience and maintain intimacy. Friendships provide potent opportunities for growth in these areas.

Friendships with peers are buffers against loneliness and help adolescents deal with problems. Through friendships the adolescent experiences more than just her family's view. In discussions with friends, young people experiment with ideas about the opposite sex, careers, politics and religion. It is important for the adolescent to initiate and carry on conversations and to give positive feedback to friends. As adolescents spend time together discussing personal issues and sharing their differing views and ideas they learn to self-disclose, which helps them develop intimacy and emotional intelligence.

Loneliness is a feeling of being separated from one's friends or loved ones. Forced separation from friends can cause anger, which makes the adolescent separate herself from her family. She may spend more time alone in her bedroom or talking on the telephone. The maturation process demands that the adolescent shift her identity and feelings of belonging from parents to peers, and can cause a normal sense of loneliness. The adolescent may develop fear, guilt and self-blaming if the family doesn't handle this drastic change in a caring, loving fashion. When healthy friendships are not encouraged and accepted, the normal loneliness of maturing can be exaggerated to the point of severe pain and hopelessness, which may lead to self-medication through alcohol or drugs.

Adolescents between the ages of fifteen and seventeen who are having identity problems have difficulties knowing and maintaining their own values. This makes it difficult for them to be loyal and intimate, both of which are necessary elements in developing friendships. Youths who are submissive and conform to their friends because they are not centered in their own values are usually not as well liked by their peers. Friendships demand that a youth be loyal to group values, but also be loyal to their own values. Being liked by peers demands that the adolescent be able to resist social pressure and be their own person. What may look to parents like mindless conforming to adolescent friends is in fact a delicate blend of loyalty to self and to others.

Young people who can maintain their own values, who can be trusted, and who are loyal to their peers are more apt to be well liked. They have friends and do not experience as much loneliness as youths who do not have these social skills. The capacity for self-disclosure is an important social skill for young people because relationships at this age are very intense and emotional. The ability to self-disclose and to express one's intensity and emotions makes friendships more satisfying and helps an adolescent to develop intimacy. Young people who are not able to be intimate with their friends are eventually rejected and neglected, which then leads to loneliness.

Young people in rural districts who are gifted often feel lonely because their peers do not accept them. Gifted adolescents who get beyond the loneliness have often had to down play their giftedness in order to have friends. There is a strong need to conform, and it is more rewarding to conform than to be lonely. These young people often feel like being gifted is a curse. They are in a double bind in that they try to down play their creativity and their talents in order to fit in at school, while their parents and extended family members are not happy with their selection of friends. Young people report to me that they want to select their own friends, and they often get angry when their parents want them to choose friends who are smart, but who do not have the social skills that are accepted by their peers. The young person may feel guilty for not pleasing his parents, yet be determined to associate with friends who are popular but may not meet with their parent's approval. This causes conflict with both parents and peers and it isolates the young gifted adolescent, leaving them feeling lonely and like they do not "fit."

The basic needs fulfillment advocated by Liberation Psychology-the needs for physical integrity; trust and hope; safety, security and competence; power and justice; belonging, respect and love/non-violence; uniqueness, gender and culture; freedom and self-determination; creativity and spirituality-are the basic needs that are required for the development of intimacy and identity achievement in adolescence. Intimacy and identity achievement are developed through the social skills of conversation, self-disclosure and positive feedback with friends.

This dual developmental requirement also demands that the adolescent develop her ability to stand her own ground, to resist social pressure, to deal with conflict and to maintain good boundaries. These tasks of the adolescent are about maintaining loyalty to her own core values. Growth in these areas reassures a healthy, flourishing personality in adulthood. Friendship is the vehicle, the container that the adolescent uses when dealing with loneliness so that a healthy intimacy and an achieved identity will be accomplished in these important developmental years.

References

Atwater, E. (1992). Adolescence (3rd Ed.). Engelwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Balk, D. (1995) Adolescent development: Early through late adolescence. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.