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This book has explored confusing adolescent behavior from a Peer Arena lens. Recognizing such behavior as primarily the result of psychological interactions and comparison with peers provides an opportunity to better understand adolescents' efforts to see themselves through the stressful period of individuation and of becoming their own person. The Peer Arena lens allows the professional to accept the fact that adolescents want to be together with other adolescents. Professionals who focus on the “conflict of the generations” and “rebellion” miss the essence of adolescence and the importance of the Peer Arena for adolescent development. This book has provided key insights into the theory and practice of working with adolescents by drawing on Peer Arena Retrospective (PAR) protocols and the Peer Arena Lens (PAL) group therapy.

This chapter describes Peer Arena Lens (PAL) group therapy with adolescents. PAL group therapy is designed to assist troubled adolescents in working through their need for a defensive glitch and to prepare them to return to the Peer Arena to complete the adolescent psychological task of developing successfully into maturity. Therapy groups are assembled in such a way as to replicate the adolescent's home Peer Arena as much as possible. The overall goal of PAL group therapy is to strengthen adolescents' return to their natural Peer Arena, so that they are ready to deal constructively with peer interaction. To accomplish this goal, they will learn to use comparative acts constructively, cope with the findings, and sustain ups and downs without resorting to defensive glitches. The Peer Arena Retrospective (PAR) protocols are designed for use in PAL group therapy. This chapter considers the structure of PAL group therapy as well as the admission and application process, finishing process, leaving process, group discharge criteria and group discharge process, and group therapy design features.

This chapter presents a case study—that of a fourteen-year-old Black male of Caribbean descent in the ninth grade who lived in a lower-middle-class neighborhood near a large New Jersey city—to illustrate the ever-present potential for complexity in Peer Arena Lens (PAL) group therapy. Several examples of complexity are evident in this case, including the decision-making process that must take place to meet an adolescent's altered “next-step” needs. The boy's case also demonstrates how PAL procedures can be mixed and matched and how and when Peer Arena Retrospective (PAR) protocols can be used even after the adolescents are enrolled in PAL. This chapter focuses on the boy's referral information, family history, missing information, cognitive development, and the protocols used to determine if the boy had adopted a defensive glitch. It also considers the boy's reentry into PAL group therapy and how he was impacted by the therapy.