The risky sexual behaviors of adolescents with a personality disorder often allow us to go back to a traumatic sexual event in childhood, whether it be an individual or a transgenerational one. As in the neurotica and the theory of fantasy, the differentiating phases of the patient’s history thus become apparent, the time of the primacy of the destructuring experience and that of the memory trace which causes the traumatic experience to be reproduced within an already destructured psyche.
“Radicalization” emerges in parents’discourse as a reason for seeking consultation for their children. In three clinical situations, it appears as a form of mediation used by adolescents to separate themselves from their parents and fill up a void in the transgenerational. “Traumatic racial mixing” is discussed as a factor in the identity process. The aim of this article is to understand the meaning of these radical engagements with the context of separation and individuation.
»Attempting to build relationships within « families with broken bonds « requires the therapist to maintain flexibility in the counter-transference despite all opposition, in order to avoid the traps of repetition. Amidst the confusion of projections, counter-transference guarantees the therapist the stability of his identity, in spite of the variations, sometimes brutal, to which he is exposed. By giving meaning to what he feels, he avoids acting out, which would exclude him, and evaluates the reality of immediate danger. Thus avoiding an emergency intervention, he allows a transformation to begin.»
In this interview with Raymond Cahn, the interviewers essentially used Adolescence et folie (PUF, 1991) as a guideline. Four successive points of view explored Cahn’s conceptions of adolescence: from the respective angles of the subject, of the object, of the internal-external family, and of the therapeutic institution.
Beginning with a reflection on contemporary cultural mixing, the author will analyze this issue as it relates to second-generation immigrant children and their parents. Using some clinical examples of children and their parents received in a Pschological Service for immigrants, she reflects upon the trauma of migration and on the non-elaborated secrets which are passed down to the next generation. Also she raises the question of cultural counter-transference, a central factor in preventing fallout within the therapeutic relation, and analyzes the creative potential of second generation adolescents.
Adolescents living in suburban slums often express shame of their social, cultural and geographical origins. This problem is (re)inscribed in the world’s emotional geopoliutics, to give a better understanding the identity issues in the adolescents. Using two clinical vignettes with adolescents in the Maison d’Enfants à Caractère Social (socially-oriented child center), we demonstrate the importance cultural counter-transference and multi-level listening in elaborating the emotional baggage through the creative process.
Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°3, pp. 577-587.
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