Julia: Self-focus is a touchy quality, often mistaken for arrogance, superiority or being stuck-up. However, self-focus is the culprit in countless everyday scenarios. Upon reaching adolescence, teenagers become grossly self-aware of their changing selves. Being hyperaware of yourself is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it’s a necessary part of growing up and tracking how you change. However, taking it to an extreme can make life miserable.

I like to think of self-focus in three forms: The first is self-reflection, which is common and rarely harmful. The second is self-consciousness, which is potentially dangerous. And the last is self-deprecation, which is destructive. Self-reflection is an everyday quality that, deny as they may, all teenagers go through, better known as feeling insecure. Insecurity is a prime focus on yourself; what you want to change or wish was different about yourself. I say insecurity isn’t harmful because it is your self-awareness speaking up, and insecurities can cause you to take a good look at yourself and change for the better. However, as with most good or necessary things, too much insecurity can hurt rather than help. Everyone goes through it, but most transition out of feeling insecure.

Those who don’t make the transition feel self-conscious, becoming the object of life rather than the subject. By that I mean feeling and acting as though life happens to them and in order for the situation to get better, life must change, not them. Who hasn’t blamed their bad grades on a “teacher who hates them” or accused someone else of causing their own bad day? As hard as it is, the best approach is taking total responsibility for your actions. The more responsibility you take for your actions, the more control you have over them and life

The last form, self-deprecation, is the most difficult to recognize in yourself or others, but is a root of many problems. Here, life doesn’t just happen to you; it’s out to get you. Self-deprecation takes self-focus to the extreme with obsession, worrying about what probably won’t happen, and turning any given situation into a catastrophe. This is self-destructive to your mentality, your relationships and your general outlook on life. For such cases, it is best to pull yourself out of the situation and ask yourself, if anything bad can really happen and if so, what is the worst? Examine how much of this is you escalating the situation out of fear versus seeing the situation for what it is. By working backwards from freaking out to feeling mildly insecure, you save yourself and people around you from extra stress.

Dr. Wes: Julia’s first column involves what we psychologists refer to as perception and attributional style – how you make sense of your world, especially who you bless and who you blame for the good and bad that happens in your life. For each of us, the world is only as manageable as we believe it to be. There are genuine obstacles for everyone, including racial prejudice, educational opportunity, raw intelligence and socioeconomic status. Yet, the only real variable we can control is how we choose to respond to the ups and downs of our world. There are countless stories of heroic efforts by people pulling against the odds, and just as many about those who blew away every opportunity they were given. A huge part of our success in life depends squarely on how we reflect on ourselves and our ability to make changes to who we are and how we interact with others.

Here, research poses an interesting and paradoxical picture. For example, we find that depressed people actually have a MORE realistic view of how crummy the world is than do nondepressed people. They also may have a more realistic perception of their own shortcomings, faults and mistakes. Nondepressed people tend to ignore these flaws, hanging on to the glass-half-full perspective. Anxious people often worry about real dangers – flunking out of school, having a car accident, being hurt in a relationship, or exaggerated ones like terrorists showing up in Lawrence. Nonanxious people focus on relaxing stuff, or at least the statistical improbability of gloom and doom.

So by this logic we’re all better off living in complete denial of reality, right? Not quite. Pretending that everything is sweetness and light leaves one in a state of helplessness to respond when real problems do arise. Always blaming someone else or ignoring genuine threats to our well-being prevents us from engaging in helpful self-reflection and change.

As usual, balance is the great nonsecret of raising competent kids – or just being one. In this case, parents want to help their children accept reality without becoming submerged in it – to take responsibility without feeling oppressed by normal age-appropriate obligations. That’s not easy when we’re sometimes feeling rather submerged and oppressed ourselves with busy and chaotic lives. But attribution and perception do bear some parental self-study as well as some guidance to help our children better reflect on themselves and the world they live in.

It’s not going to get less complicated by the time they’re our age.

Next week: A teen worries that her family “isn’t good for each other” and asks about alternatives to divorce.

– Dr. Wes Crenshaw is a board-certified family psychologist and director of the Family Therapy Institute Midwest. Julia Davidson is a Bishop Seabury Academy junior. Opinions and advice given here are not meant as a substitute for psychological evaluation or therapy services. Send your questions about adolescent issues to doubletake@ljworld.com. All correspondence is strictly confidential.