"Don't worry about me... I'll be alright. I'm just going through a phase right now. Everybody goes through phases and all, don't they?" Holden is not going through a phase; any stage of development has a lasting effect on future stages, and is usually incurred by previous experiences. A "phase," by definition, is something passing with no lasting effects. Holden Caulfield at a young age experienced many troubling things for which he received no moral …
showed first 75 words of 626 total

showed last 75 words of 626 total
…examples given above, Holden is the latter. The direct cause of his detachment from society is the death of his brother Allie. It also seems that Holden has adopted this mentality as his own, and is not likely to relinquish in later years, if it weren't for the counseling he received in the mental hospital. As such, Holden isn't going through a phase, he has a deep rooted psychological issue, not some passing personality quirk.