Relational processes and identity formation in adolescence: the example of A Separate Peace

The process of identity formation in adolescence, specifically, the relational context of identity formation, is examined through the prism of the story of an adolescent boy's development during the Second World War at a boarding school in New Hampshire, USA--John Knowles's A Separate Peace. The discussion focuses on mirroring, on the adolescent's need to be validated and the simultaneous fear of transparency, and on idealization and deidealization. Using the book as a narrative example of the transformation of connections that are essential to the process of development, the authors discuss the complexity of male adolescent growth.