Although J. Lacan rarely discussed the theme of adolescence as such, his analysis of the Dora case, can allow us to underscore three characteristics of the adolescent process: the traumatic impact of the encounter with the desire of the Other, the attempt to cover up the sexual with knowledge and the quest for a stable position towards sex identification. The revealing of the inadequacy of knowledge during adolescence refers us to the structural incompleteness of the symbolic and to a part of the real that the symbolic cannot absorb.
How does an adolescent manage to go into politics in the strict sense of the word ? The love of ideals, which sometimes make such a noisy appearance at this time in one’s existence, is probably the most decisive factor in this. Still we must pinpoint the components of this love, and the different categories of ideals concerned, which Freud only sketched out in the second part of his work. Then one perceives that access to the political presupposes both adhesion to the most universal ideals and respect for the narcissistic, partial and social ideals imposed by existence. This is thus the source of permanent conflicts and the adolescent can only handle these within the group by entering into political discourse in the larger sense, and thus by appealing to those ideals by their name without getting taken in by their limits. It is in this way that he takes them upon himself and acts as a subject, a subject that is necessarily torn between often contradictory imperatives, but who takes the risk of speaking up for his own convictions.
The concept of the bond is defined on the basis of the tertiary processes Green has studied. The « we » approaches the intersubjectal, widening this definition. The use of the terms psychopathology and psychotherapy of the bond is more clear. A clinical discussion by Marie-Christine Aubray follows.
As an approach to the work of adolescence, the notion of subjectivation involves an investigation into the specificity of the subject in question and the stakes of a process which will be drawn from an examination of three works. We will therefore have to revisit the singularity of these three original approaches to the processes of subjectivation: subject of the flesh and « first unconscious » (Cahn) ; oscillation between hysteric-depressive and basic melancholy (Richard) ; work on the active-passive turnabout and access to « letting oneself be done to by the signifiers » (Penot). The accent will be on the central function of the reality of the sexually differentiated body, which seems in some respects to be underestimated by these authors (first part of the article published in the previous issue). In the second step, and in the second part of the article (published here), the options that we have chosen will lead to us to examine the subject’s relationship with its real « potentials », which constitute it as a social and cultural subject, as well as the work of auto-creation and that of sublimation(s), understood to be essential to the loosening of the drives. If the subject in question is an ego-subject, this will result in a confrontation of two intentionalities within the clinical approaches : one having to do with the ego (functional and narrative) and the other with the subject (divided and confronted with castration.)
As an approach to the work of adolescence, the notion of subjectivation involves an investigation into the specificity of the subject in question and the stakes of a process which will be drawn from an examination of three works. We will therefore have to revisit the singularity of these three original approaches to the processes of subjectivation: subject of the flesh and “ first unconscious ” (Cahn) ; oscillation between hysteric-depressive and basic melancholy (Richard) ; work on the active-passive turnabout and access to “ letting oneself be done to by the signifiers ” (Penot). The accent will be on the central function of the reality of the sexually differentiated body, which seems in some respects to be underestimated by these authors. In the second part of the article (which will appear in the next issue of the Revue) the options that we have chosen will lead to us to examine the subject’s relationship with its real “ potentials ”, which constitute it as a social and cultural subject, as well as the work of auto-creation and that of sublimation(s), understood to be essential to the loosening of the drives. If the subject in question is an ego-subject, this will result in a confrontation of two intentionalities within the clinical approaches : one having to do with the ego (functional and narrative) and the other with the subject (divided and confronted with castration.)
The advent of Rimbaud as an author happens early, when he is just 17. He is caught in a dialectical argument about acknowledgement with Georges Izambard, the first reader of his poetry. Izambard recognizes its worth and serves as a go-between, without backing out from the encounter with Rimbaud, the suffering adolescent. He is a quiet witness to the turbulences of a teenager and the birth of a poet. Going over the dynamics of the weaving and unweaving of this relationship is of great interest for the study of teenagers.
The subject of the unconscious and the collective maintain consubstantial relations. They are like inside and outside for one another. The passage from to the other is accomplished as if over a Mœbius strip where inside and outside are indistinguishable. If the subject of the unconscious is the effect of the laws of language, this is not without being colored by collective productions and their institutional set-ups which, through a certain collective arrangement of speech and utterances, dig canals and confer upon it specific modes of expression. The tale and the dream, as they may refer to each other and unfold in a singular speech, aim to be the privileged means of grasping this articulation. An illustration of this is given here using a clinical research encounter, in the context of oral tradition, with an eleven year-old girl, recounting the marks of a fate for signs of a dreamed destiny.
Under this title, a general theory of the social bond is proposed. It should allow for an exploration of the way a subject manages to find accommodation in a living-together, without giving up its singularity, and without putting the social link in danger. We call the logical moment of this solution the « adolescent moment »; starting from this, we try to propose issues and to extract the pre-conditions for possibilities.
On the one hand, institutions for adolescents accept all sorts of demands; on the other hand, the extension of delinquency has the effect of socializing crime. Consequently, the therapist may accept situations at the crossroads where the penal, the clinical and the social meet, as in the case of a young criminal we received. There is a jarring of usual clinical practice, as the practitioner must be able to cope with the possibility of recidivism. We give an account of the clinical perspective adopted in this case, one which emphasized fantasy rather than drives, and which seemed to us a more honest way of accepting our social responsibility. Adolescence, 2013, 30, 4, 945-956.
This article suggests that the them of migration be considered as a metaphor for an interior psychical operation : the subjectalizing differentiation from the primary objects, which play a decisive role in adolescence. The issue of the subject is treated within a dialogue with sociologists, anthropologists, historians and philosophers, to the point of envisioning a plural subject open to the diversity of libidinal economies – characterized by the omnipresence of psychical bisexuality and infantile sexuality, here related to gender theory.
Migration introduces one to mixing – ethnic, cultural, but also psychical. A clinical example of adolescent psychical disorder generating elaboration and symbolization of interior strangeness illustrates the hypothesis : we are all migrants.
Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°3, pp. 661-672.
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