The status of the spoken word, at the onset of adolescence, translates the contradictory identity movement out of which the « I »will be constructed. The identity idem and the identity ipse constitute the two poles from which the certitude of a subjectal definition is pronounced. An «I» that the adolescent questions by upsetting the rules of language, but also by choosing particular procedures to which the new modes of communication will enable him to give form.
Using a series of selections from a treatment, the author covers the conditions of this identity work in adolescence. It is, in essence, a self-construction. Lastly, the author insists on the importance of a psychical « aimless going » for which analytical therapy will appear as the natural matrix.

Adolescence, 2009, T. 27, n°4, pp. 971-982.