By means of a case study, the authors investigate the practice of high-level sports by young “slaves of glory”, who gain access to the position of demiurge through a disavowal of limits and a fantasy of omnipotence. When the reality of the body and of injuries comes rushing in, these champions start by asking for their “performance machine” to be restored, which gradually leads to an opening up of their inner world and to the emergence of complex pre-existing conflicts.
Homer favors two kinds of hero : the hero like Achilles in the Iliad, who glorifies mortal combat and has had many imitators throughout history, and the kind embodied by Ulysses in the Odyssey, in which the hero proves himself by thwarting the obstacles he meets on his way back to his place of origin. On the one hand, we have a struggle between two which, though it certainly brings notoriety, causes the destruction of one of the two parties involved ; on the other hand, we have the hero’s ceaseless combat to save his life and find his place in the city. The first gives precedence to the gaze and is submitted to the requirements of appearances ; the second, on the contrary, first goes after the eye which holds sway over him and takes it apart in order to give himself a name. The adolescent process takes part in theses two discourses at the same time, and presupposes a gradual disengagement from the mastery of sight which reflects back the ideal. Referring to different literary works, the author shows the conditions that make possible this evolution. Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°2, pp. 313-326.
Revue semestrielle de psychanalyse, psychopathologie et sciences humaines, indexée AERES au listing PsycINFO publiée avec le concours du Centre National du Livre et de l’Université de Paris Diderot Paris 7