The Self-Led Idealist: Why We Need This Adolescent Part
May 14, 2025 —Let’s begin with three stories.
#1 - The poem began I am in hell, written when I was 13 years old. I had just discovered that my larger-than-life father who was, in my eyes, the arbiter of all things moral and pure, was sleeping with a woman out of wedlock. While I wasn’t devoutly Christian, I was devastated to discover that my father could be immoral, that he was just a human being.
#2 - On my 16th birthday, my grandmother gave me a beautiful hardbound copy of Little Women. I’m sure she was certain I would immediately resonate with Jo scribbling away in her garret room, eating apples, and creating worlds. The book is still on my shelf 47+ years later, well-worn, visited many times. There is a letter written on the endpapers in the rounded cursive of a dreaming adolescent girl. I wrote it to the child I dreamed of having. I wrote it to a motherhood I envisioned, a relationship between a mother and her child in which I would beatifically impart all my wisdom and love upon the child, and they would receive it with great gratitude and adoration.
#3 - When I was 18 years old, my boyfriend and I were sitting on my bed in my college dorm discussing politics. I was shaking with rage and fear. I predicted dire circumstances, the fall of our democracy, and the fall of the Western world. Of life on the planet. I wasn’t sure what to do with all of the emotion, with the overwhelming desire to charge out into the world, fists raised, and do anything and everything to save it.
Meet my Idealist part.
The Idealist
The Oxford Dictionary defines Idealist as: “a person who is guided more by ideals than by practical considerations…” And the definition of ideal is: “a person or thing regarded as perfect.” My Idealist part at age 13 believed my father was more than human, a perfect being. At 16, I envisioned myself as the Ideal mother and with an Ideal child. When I was 18, it was the world and world leaders who needed to be perfect.
The Freudian psychoanalyst Peter Blos wrote extensively on adolescence and adolescent development through a Freudian lens. He has this to say about Idealism in adolescence:
“My clinical impression of some of the angry or activist adolescents who seek the creation of a perfect society has led me to assume that their belief in a perfect world is rooted in an archaic belief in parental perfection. The ‘idealized parent imago’ (Kohut, 1971), when externalized, lends a fanatical vision to the striving for a perfect world, while the narcissistic rage in the face of parental disillusionment finds a belated expression in the irrationality of violence. An imperfect world either must yield to correction or must be destroyed.”
While I agree with some of Blos’ observations, I’m skeptical of his proposed causes for Idealism. From this perspective, the part of the adolescent that engages in idealism is perceived as something to be extinguished. It is regarded as narcissistic, irrational, and naive, in other words, pathological. The whole project of the Idealist part is to move beyond and away from the parent. Very Freudian. But he is correct—the Adolescent Idealist part will seek to change the world absolutely and condemn its imperfections absolutely.
In my own experience with my Idealist part and as I sit with teenagers, I’ve come to a different conclusion. I propose that the Idealist is an archetypal movement in the Adolescent psyche as the individual undergoes the transformation that will carry them from childhood through the liminality of Adolescence and into adulthood. It is a part that has been waiting in the wings, an Imaginal cell like those found in the pupae of butterflies and moths, waiting to come into the fullness of its being in Adolescence for a reason, a telos the world is always in need of. That is, it is a part that becomes animated during the adolescent years to serve a future purpose that cannot be known yet. (I highly recommend Richard Frankel’s brilliant book The Adolescent Psyche for more on the teleology of Adolescence.)
The energy of this part can be fervent, earnest, passionate, determined, angry, and, yes, sometimes violent.. While there are still aspects of childhood flights of fancy in the visioning of the Idealist, the imagination of this part can be the wayfinder for life goals, perhaps may offer the first inkling of a calling, of meaning and purpose in the life of the young person. There is, in the Idealist, like any archetype, the shadow side of its nature.
The shadow side
Inherent to this archetype is the either/or choice, all-or-nothing perspectives. There is a rigidity in the teenager when the Idealist archetype is present. Along with these qualities comes judgement against “or” that stands on the other side of the “either.” The Idealist desires to banish the “nothing” for the fervid belief in the “all.” As Blos noted, if the world cannot be course corrected then it must be destroyed. We see the juvenile Idealist in politics on the current stage. The teenager led by the Idealist part will argue until they’re blue in the face. They’d rather alienate their parents and grandparents to progress their agendas rather than stay in relationship. If the Idealist part does not mature with age, perspectives remain cemented and limited,
When I became a parent, the part of me that dreamed of an idyllic motherhood was still alive and well. It caused problems right away because, of course, my child was not an object to perform in a way to prove that I was the world’s greatest mom. My expectations for my first baby were the expectations of the Idealist part.
We don’t want to banish this vital part of Adolescence. We want to bring perspective, wisdom, and guidance so the shadow of this archetype is tempered. In this way the Idealist can continue to bring its visionary nature to our lives.
Know your “why”
We need the Idealist. The world needs our Idealist parts. The teenager needs their Idealist to move through the transformative years of Adolescence with a sense of purpose, that telos, toward an unknown but vital future. We can support our kids’ Idealist parts by having conversations about meaning-making, hero’s journeys, spirituality, politics, social justice issues, and philosophy. And have this conversation — Why do you wake up in the morning? What is the larger purpose of your daily life?
Dr. Michelle Loy, assistant professor of pediatrics in clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, offers these four questions we can use in our conversations that Idealist parts revel in, finding where the answers intersect, paving the way for a life with meaning.
What do I love? (Passion)
What am I good at? (Profession)
What does the world need? (Mission)
What can I be compensated for? (Vocation)
Conclusion
I did forgive my father eventually, and to this day see what a fine person he is, thankful for the humanness of him, his flaws and all. I continue to write poetry too. I was not the perfect mom. Sometimes I wasn’t even the good enough mom. But I am a fervent believer in being a better mom always, giving myself grace when I’m not. I coach parents these days—not to beatifically impart their wisdom to their children but to be present wholeheartedly and vulnerably. A more attainable ideal. And I still rage at social injustices while also loving the world. I do not want to destroy it or correct it but to live in it and do my work. My Idealist part is quite content these days.
Photo by: Ingus Evertovskis