Delinquent girls: Observations of their styles within a cottage setting

Abstract

An attempt was made to understand by means of testing, interviews, and observations the individual and group psychodynamics of 13 delinquent girls in one cottage of a girls' training school. The girls were individuals almost uniformly impoverished in ego skills and consequently showed a great deal of role diffusion and could deal only with the immediate and present. Group interaction was dominated by a core group of four girls who represented the stable power structure of the cottage. With the exception of one dyadic relationship, most other relationships between the girls were transient (lasting one or two weeks) and of low emotional intensity. Overall, a girl's homosexual involvement was predictive of her total social involvement because of its index of the ability to relate emotionally to others.