The loves of adolescence are not rehearsals for the real thing; they are real, and they leave real marks — on the nervous system's expectation of love, on the capacity for intimacy, on the templates carried into adult life. They also occur in a context of underdeveloped emotional regulation and social complexity that makes them uniquely intense and often uniquely painful. This domain looks at adolescent love with the seriousness it deserves.
Each step builds on the last.