They can be integrated within an understanding of adolescent psychiatric crisis as something that occurs in relation to two developmental processes specific to adolescence.
Separation from the family of origin, and the concomitant adjustment to integration into new social systems.
NeuroDevelopmental changes - brain development in adolescence is only recently becoming clear, following the invention of new ways of imaging the brain.
Brain changes in the adolescent - TED talk by Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (UCL)
Adolescence, the brain, culture, violence and the role of therapy including AMBIT
A great short talk by Martin Debanne (Geneva and UCL) from the ESCAP conference in Madrid, July 2015, that puts into context why we might be right to worry about the context in which young brains are developing, and what is the point of therapeutic approaches like AMBIT in intervening:
Adolescence: a mindfield
Video (requires Flash) of a public lecture about the developmental aspects of Adolescence given by Dickon Bevington at the Anna Freud Centre (November 2011) here:
Multiple Burdens
Commonly, the developmental trajectory of adolescents (particularly those targeted by AMBIT) is weighed down by MULTIPLE burdens: for instance ADHD, Learning Difficulties, Abuse, Neglect, Bullying, Conduct Disorder, Substance use, etc...
These different burdens collectively weigh down the adolescent's development trajectory. Imagine adolescence is the last 100m of the runway; there are real obstacles at the end of the runway - not houses, but skills and competencies (literacy, basic social skills, etc) that, if you haven't got them by the age of 18 - 21, are likely to leave you disadvantaged for the rest of life. Even though individually these separate burdens may not be dramatically severe, it is often the cumulative burden of all of them that pushes the trajectory dangerously off course: