Adolescence puts the course of early development back into play and works towards the expansion of the psychical apparatus. At puberty, the adolescent is called to provided himself and others with a stable narration (though it may be reworked) of his history and his childhood. The elaboration of puberty entails complex and difficult psychical work, and exposes one to the organization of a psychopathology.
In the borderline adolescent especially, the needs of evolution activate anxiety and conflict in a significant way. The conflict is born of traumatic cores from the past which, on the one hand, generate the fear of re-living fragmentation and, on the other hand, the expectation of the inevitable and continual actualization of the traumatic experience.
The analyst then is responding to the adolescent’s difficult process of becoming aware of himself (his difficulty in making his affective states legible for himself and others) as well as to his perception of not having enough « auto » psychical processus (empty and chaotic feeling of self) through a lengthy self-analytical work. This is the start of knowing and transforming the therapeutic relation which is continually at risk of shutting itself up in confused unity and an endless mirroring function.