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86 CHARACTERISTICS OF BRAIN AND BEHAVIORtity, one that is ready to face the unforgiving realities of adulthood. This is a metamorphosis,a change in neuropsychological form, a transformation of the self.We begin with a psychological analysis of the individuation of the self in adolescence.This brief study draws on the modern psychoanalytic theory of objectrelations, emphasizing the importance of self-regulation in an interpersonal context.Next, we review our theoretical model of the neural mechanisms of selfregulation,emphasizing the limbic influences on motivation, and how theseinfluences also control the process of memory consolidation. We argue that themotivational control of memory consolidation may be the central factor in theongoing process of neuropsychological self-regulation.Finally, we attempt a new theoretical integration of neural mechanisms ofmotivation with the psychoanalytic theory of self-regulation. In this approach, themotivations that awaken during the adolescent phase support not only autonomyand interpersonal individuation, but the capacity for critical thinking that underliesabstract thought. We propose that the cognitive negotiation of interpersonalrelations is achieved with the same mechanisms of neural and conceptual selfregulationthat are required for intellectual differentiation and critical thought.Because interpersonal orientations are the integral engines of thought in the adolescentmind, the individuation of an identity becomes an essential foundation forachieving the differentiation of abstract intelligence in the adolescent period.The Adolescent TransitionIn the United States, at least, many parents of young people would argue thatadolescence is becoming less of a period of transition and more of a way of life.However vague its resolution, the onset of adolescence is definite, as gonadalhormones trigger the differentiation of secondary sex characteristics and sexualmaturity. Given the powerful roles of sex hormones in regulating sexual differentiationin utero, we might expect that sex-specific differentiation of neural systemsat puberty is responsible for at least some of the sex differences in cognition,affect, and perhaps even sexual preference that become apparent in adolescence.We can observe strong shifts in the young person’s motivation, as the adolescentturns away from the childhood attachment to parents and toward peer affiliationand sexuality. These motive transitions suggest powerful influences of gonadalhormones on hypothalamic and limbic mechanisms (Nelson et al., 2005).In mammals, sexual maturity is associated not only with reproductive capacitybut the loss of play behavior and the assumption of species-specific adult roles.In large primates, genetic diversity has been maintained by the maturation of certaininstinctual tendencies that separate individuals from the family group. In rhesusmonkeys, for example, when juvenile males become sexually mature, mature femalesappear to become irritated with them and drive them out of the troop (Suomi,