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.

Adolescence, 2016, 34, 2, 319-331.