The article outlines the key warning signs that can help identify and distinguish, with a view to early intervention, adolescents experiencing emerging difficulties from those going through the normal challenges of adolescence. It offers advice to adults on how to better understand adolescents and emphasizes the need for adults who work with adolescents to be informed and trained to view the adolescent within the broader context of their challenges. To illustrate a preventive approach, the author describes the Clinique Dupré’s project to establish a preventive and evaluative counseling service for high school and college students.