British psychologists Chris Harrop and Peter Trower note that these challenges seem to provoke in adolescents traits that are reminiscent of characteristics often seen in psychotic patients: marked shifts of mood coupled with equally dramatic shifts in self-esteem; self-consciousness, egocentricity and grandiosity; magical thinking and a preoccupation with powerful role models and the fable of one’s own life.77 In a study of normal adolescents carried out by Patrick McGorry and his colleagues in Melbourne, Australia, it was found that these kinds of characteristics are extremely difficult to
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