Sometimes it may seem as if our children will never make it through adolescence. However, one way or another, they get older and move on in the natural order of things. As our children grow up, become young adults, and build their own lives, that transition brings with it new adjustments. This period of childhood development, perhaps more than any other, often arouses intense feelings of insecurity for parents and children alike. It is hard to accept that a child who has been living with you for so many years is suddenly gone. There is a huge void, no matter how difficult the previous years have been. Mothers who have devoted their whole lives to parenting may find themselves feeling useless, rejected, scared, or lonely. Both parents may have a hard time accepting their children's increasing separation and independence from them; they may feel responsible for the troubles that befall their children and, at the same time, powerless to protect them from the pain and disappointment that is an inevitable part of growing up. All these feelings will be reflected in the parents' dreams. It is not surprising, then, to find many middle-age parents of postadolescents having dreams such as the following one.
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 | | The Bay Bridge
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| | I'm on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco with my husband and daughter, Julie. She is wearing a red wedding dress, standing on the edge of the bridge. I reach out to her, but she falls and sinks into the water. My husband doesn't help. I wake up in tears.
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Pat had this dream shortly after her twenty-two-year-old daughter, Julie, left home for California. Julie had been having a lot of trouble making the adjustment. "This dream," Pat began, "was an emergency call to me that she needed my help.
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