Counselling the adolescent girl in a time of changing values

The position of the adolescent girl has always been somewhat ambiguous in western culture. No more a little girl and not yet a woman, she remained in limbo waiting for the time when she would marry and no longer be the responsibility of her family. Counsellors who work with adolescent girls have been expected to reinforce a value system which prized 'innocence' in young women, emphasized the romantic view of love and looked upon marriage as an eternal bond. Developing trends in the Women's Liberation Movement, the ability of contraceptive information and easy abortion, experiments by young people with varied forms of interpersonal relationships anf family structures, all indicate that the traditional value system is changing. There is a new reality; women are now free to follow more than one way of life. For the counsellor this presents the same dilemma which faces the adolescent girl: how to leave the security of the known and prepare for the potential choices which are inherent in the unknown.