The Valuable Allies

Abstract

The primary reason tor a counselor's existence is to foster, through understanding and acceptance, the development of individuals. When the individuals are adolescents the task is trying, because most adults have difficulty identifying with the "real irks" of the adolescent's existence. The personal, educational, and historical reasons for this difficulty are examined. A suggestion, originally made by Freud, is reiterated to help the counselor explore the worlds of youth. The important point is that, for those who would truly know adolescents, psychology and literature ought to be fellow disciplines. The psychologist discovered the adolescent, but it is the novelist who defines him. A bibliography of "proper information" (fictional sources) is included.STORY TELLERS are valuable allies, and their testimony is to be rated high, for they actually know many things between heaven and earth that our academic wisdom does not even dream of.