Energetic Dynamic Equilibrium During Adolescence

The examination of the energetic circulation at the pulses has no relevance during the first years of life: in this period the developmental process programmed during the prenatal life stage has a permanent progress.

Between four and seven years of age the examination at the pulses offers some useful, albeit generic information on the individual. At the prepubescent age however, between eight to eleven years of age, all the information which can be perceived through the examination of the energetic circulation at the pulses are of primary importance.

This is an age of transformations, in view of the characteristic changes that will be taking place in the adolescent age. A harmonious psycho-physical, mental development ensures the necessary normal energetic dynamic equilibrium.

Adolescence is not the “uncertain age”: rather during this stage many ideas manifest themselves, from descriptive to imaginative to metaphorical, all of which originate from the adolescent’s efforts to synthesize all the complexities of an age that, even from a purely temporal point of view, escapes precise periodizations. “It is a temporal period dimension existing "between real world and the world of toys”.

Nor is adolescence an “age of unrest”. It is the age of individual adult development, the period in which the adolescent person is freed from the genetic patrimony inherited by parents and is changed into a “living being”. As an adult, the adolescent will assume a role of protagonist and will actively determine his own existence.

Obviously adolescents cannot be confined within the limits of the child's or the adult's symptomological categories. The symptoms during this age possess their own specificity, inside which unstable disharmonies, excessive emotivity, surprising behaviours, are indications of some chaotic disequilibriums resulting from the emergence of new situations with growing levels of complexity.

“Mommy, I don’t know how to be good”, “Mommy, do you still love me ?”. The child expresses his emotional suffering and his difficulty regarding the intra or extra psychic or environmental means of communication. Problems during infancy are mostly the result of the lack of comprehension on the part of adults, who don't understand the signs of discomfort that the child sends hoping for some help. When this help does not arrive, the consequences of adult lack of comprehension of the child’s behaviour will become manifest when the child will reach the age of adolescence.

A particularly complex period is lived during the age of adolescence, when key mental, physical and psychic structural development takes place. This stage requires great dynamic activity inside the metabolic systems and subsystems, predominantly within the endocrine (hormones) and neurovegetative (stress) systems, both of which are extremely chaotic.

In this period it is of fundamental importance to maintain the equilibrium inside the energetic dynamics.

In this manner, harmonious growth development and physical, psychic, mental and emotional maturation are favoured and the adolescent will find himself under the best conditions to face the needs of adolescence up until the adult age.

The biological factors, the personal history, the cultural environment and the individual’s capacity of communicating with the intra and extra-psychic environment determine normal development.

During adolescence, these complex dynamics bring about a great number of new experiences and open up a multitude of new existential horizons: in this way the individual develops a knowledge of his personal identity and the structural basis of his self-consciousness.

Together these represent a mass of causal and casual events, of a physical or psychic, internal or external nature, which are at the root of alterations, i.e. changes inside the rhythms of the energetic dynamics of the individual's complex system.

If maintaining the equilibrium inside the energetic dynamic rhythm is necessary to ensure psycho-physical health throughout the course of life, it is all the more important that energetic equilibrium be maintained during the prepubescent, pubescent and adolescent stages.

The great multitude and variety of experiences lived during this age, be they positive or negative, successes or failures, create the foundations for interior and exterior life development. It is in fact through this cultural evolutionary process that the adolescent develops a sense of individuality.

Structural, metabolic, psychic, mental and emotional developments take place during the adolescent phase, during which the individual also develops an awareness of his own personal identity.

Leaving the adolescent phase means having reached the specificity of the individual’s complex dynamic system. This is the response of the complex system which, flexible in its dynamics, is conditioned only in part by the psycho-physical characteristics contained in the natal genes.

When an existential difficulty arises, the adolescent appears to be unstable, unpredictable, at times irresponsible, often manifesting rebellious or aggressive behaviours which make him seem an actual stranger, or even enemy, to the adults he interacts with.

During this period the adolescent is only interested in developing as an individual and in creating a personal sense of self-control and independent judgement capacities. Family, school, society at times seem to ally together in order to stagger the adolescent’s creative development, thereby blocking his personal experiences and cutting off his individual growth, in order to subject him to those societal laws which he often refuses to obey.

If the specificity of a life season, no longer similar to infancy but not yet identifiable with the adult age, vainly awaits for recognition or help which never comes, the future of the adolescent will be compromised. In this case the energetic dynamic equilibrium, in its continuous flow, is not harmonized: it is altered, finding obstruction in the chaotic events characteristic of this decisive age of evolutionary development. The resulting damage may be irreversible.

Chaotic Events and State of Stress

The turbulence of the physical and psychic changes, the discovery of personal affectivity, the progressive dominion over Self-perception, positive or frustrating emotional experiences, are part of the complex existential drama. If the adolescent also faces difficult conflicts within an environment which is incapable of giving help and understanding, a profound and sometimes irreparable disequilibrium will develop.

It is during adolescence that metabolic and environmental chaotic events happen and are accumulated, giving way to either a temporary or permanent state of stress, which can be observed through the examination of the energetic dynamics at the pulses.

Alterations in the rhythms of the energetic dynamics are expressions of the chaotic dynamics and their influence over the complex system’s equilibrium. Through the examination of the energetic dynamics at the pulses it is possible to obtain the information required for understanding these alterations provoked by physical or psychic disequilibriums; it becomes evident these alterations result from a precocious or late psycho-physical, communicational or emotional development, in order to proceed with a realistic evaluation of the adolescent’s state of stress. In the majority of cases the state of stress is provoked by particular activities taking place inside the endocrine system, which has a central function of cooperating in the overall metabolic development at work, so as to favour the adolescent’s physical development. At the same time the neurovegetative system has a central function in the coordination of the signals sent by the external world as well as from the psychic and mental functions through the neurological development of the brain, which is still developing.

Frequent chaotic events are the primary cause of the condition of stress, which may be rooted in difficulty in learning at school, in the family or environmental difficulties of in poor social relations with peers; it can be caused by the adolescent’s incapacity of accepting his body, or by a disappointment in love, or else by the fear of hypercritical parents or misunderstanding teachers. The sense of being surrounded by an overwhelming environment stifles adolescent fantasies, ideals, dreams and experiences, to the point of darkening their overall perspective on life and giving way a state of infinite desolation.

The adolescent's stress can make life appear as an unbearable weight; the mystery of the future lived full of uncertainty provokes a state of personal uncertainty and existential crisis, fears and insecurities: this generalized condition of stress will contrast every attempt to accept the present and the future with serenity. Physical maturity, the conscious sense of personal responsibility, the necessity of communicating with the environment, socialization, emotions, successes or failures are part of a journey towards the unknown future. If the adolescent must face these challenges among other difficulties, the journey will be even more tempestuous and may cause more anxiety, pessimism and stress.

These events weigh heavily upon the dynamic equilibrium of the mental, emotional and physical developments.

The information required to control the basic equilibrium of the psycho-physical, mental, emotional functions in relation to the individual’s hereditary, constitutional, temperamental characteristics, is obtained through the examination of the energetic circulation at the pulses. The equilibrium achieved will guarantee normal development towards adulthood. The future influence of external and internal environmental conditions, emotions, experiences and conflicts with reality will determine new rhythmic changes evident at the examination at the pulses.

The Re-equilibration of Energetic Circulation

During the whole adolescent stage every change in the energetic dynamics is evident at the examination at the pulses. During this crucial life phase it is of fundamental importance to apply a therapeutic program which brings the energetic rhythms back to their normal state of equilibrium.

During the prepubescent, pubescent and adolescent periods, the holistic, personalized treatments based on CTMwill cause a rapid return to the normal energetic equilibrium and will ensure the necessary conditions for a free and healthy life.

The equilibrium inside the energetic rhythms is necessary for creating the psycho-physical equilibrium needed to make life choices and for facing the internal (mental, psychosomatic, etc.) and external (emotions, sensations, etc.) environment during socialisation.With the correct therapeutic intervention the adolescent is placed under the best conditions to face new experiences and unknown emotional and mental challenges with an open, unconditioned awareness. In this manner psycho-physical development will be harmonious and life's overall challenges can be faced with joy and determination.

If the energetic dynamic equilibrium is not maintained, the adolescent may face enormous difficulties. A large category of victims of this condition of altered energetic dynamics and disequilbriums caused by unresolved chaotic events is made up of elementary, high school and university students.

Energy’s chaotic dynamics produce changes, alterations in the complex system. When these chaotic movements become permanent, the adolescent's development will be negatively altered between 11 and 18 years of age, giving rise to a series of personality and behavioural changes (asocialness, aggressiveness, rebelliousness, cyclotimic phases etc.) expressing his existential discomfort and crisis

The psycho-physical discomfort resulting from the internal (psychosomatic, emotive, mental disorders) and external (family, school, social environments) relational difficulties during this age, create such unbearable suffering as to induce adolescents to consider the liberating thought of “self”-destruction or that of “others”.

Adolescents incapable of elaborating normal mental processes of concentration, memory, logic, with a neurovegetative system in a constant state of alarm, with psychosomatic disorders, fears, nightmares, with difficulty in normal inter-familiar or inter-social relationships; sometimes incapable of building a personality in line with their actual physical stage of development, because of immaturity or lack of self-perception, undergo unbearable psycho-physical stress. If the help needed to remedy the situation does not arrive the adolescent will manifest frequent mood swings, character changes and asocial behaviours (aimless idling, theft, drugs, violence, aggression, rebelliousness), demeaning the Self and a world which he does not understand and in which he feels alienated from.

Incapable of understanding and resolving too many difficulties, the adolescent tends to reject life, which is perceived as too difficult and hostile: suicide, seen as the only means of liberation, will be contemplated and may even be acted upon.

Unfortunately even such an extreme gesture, as the painful path which led to it, will again be misunderstood and will be viewed as an “unexpected, illogical, unjustified” act. Not even at this point will the permanent state of stress be recognized, nor the dysphoric behaviour which caused such constant suffering, will help to justify and explain the dramatic decision of self-destruction.