PATHOGNOMIC VERSUS DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE SELF-FOCUS DURING ADOLESCENCE - THEORETICAL CONCERNS AND CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS

Self-focused attention has been associated with a number of psychopath ological and distress related conditions-including depression, alcohol abuse, suicide, eating disorders, anxiety, and loneliness. Ironically , however, increased self-focus is also regarded as a normative aspect of adolescent functioning. Elkind for example, has described adolesce nt egocentrism as developmentally appropriate and a number of empirica l investigations have found that among normal adolescent samples, self -focus increases dramatically between pre- and post-stages of adolesce nt development. Given the widely recognized link between self-focus an d psychopathology, as well as the heightened degree of self-focus that characterizes normative adolescent functioning, it is important to di stinguish between normative, adaptive self-focus during adolescence an d abnormal or pathological self-focus.