The prescription of psychotropic drugs in adolescence is a medical act leading to reflection about what it means for both the adolescent and the prescribing physician. A new generation of psychotropes has upset the habits of prescribing physicians. Nosographic clinical practice must combine with psychopathological clinical practice, so that medication becomes a “tool of liberty” permitting the subject to grasp the “psychotropic” capacity of the medication, thanks to the “magic of words”.

Adolescence, 2014, 32, 4, 865-875.