How does Holden Caulfield relate to the teenage experience?

His experiences serve to exemplify the divide between adults and teenagers who are constantly at odds, the transition from the innocence of childhood and the ugliness and hypocrisy of adulthood, and the identity crisis that teens face when they are unable to find their place in an adult society that they feel no connection with.

Also, we see in Holden a want to go back to his childhood and regain his childhood innocence because he has seen the "phoniness" of the adult world without having entered it, similar to some teenager's thoughts of the world. Also, his being in the sanitarium throughout his telling of the story symbolizes most teenager's feelings that no one understands them and everyone chalks up their acts to the "insanity of their age."