This article explores the issue of self-effacement in adolescence and what it means for the process of subjective appropriation, using an original treatment framework centered on the “drawn narrative”. Clinical work undertaken with a young adolescent girl suffering from narcissistic and identity problems helps us to see how self-effacement contributes to the reorganization of reflective capacities and to re-establishment of the preconditions for subjectivation, supported by the mirror function of the medium and of the therapist.

Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 463-476.