We will try to show that the clinical treatment of hallucinations in adolescence, often pigeonholed as “symptoms of psychotic processes,” is situated at the borders of the process of subjectivation that is restarted and overhauled at this age. Looking at two situations, we explore this clinical area and what it can teach us about the current subjectivities, beyond the Oedipal norm.
Adolescence, 2021, 39, 2, 425-432.
We approach the issue of the unplaceable adolescent from the perspective of a paradox, speaking of the necessary quest to be named by another; this will establish one as a subject. Treating adolescents at Youth Legal Protection, we are confronted with the violence of repetition, but also with powerlessness and confusion. It is essential that the hate of the transference – and in the transference – be heard in order to understand what is at stake for the adolescent relegated to this position of excluded object.
Adolescence, 2021, 39, 2, 415-424.
Freud exhorts us to be organized for death in order to endure life. When faced with death, the refugee subject tries to reorganize his psychic life, to imaginarily reconstruct an identity shaken by trauma. But faced with the malaise brought on by war, he resists, seeking refuge in any expression of the negative.
Adolescence, 2021, 39, 2, 403-414.
In narcissistic and psychotic pathologies in adolescence, group psychoanalytic psychodrama uses play to foster the decline of omnipotence and the rise of ambiguity. It thus opens the way towards transitionality. This article reports a session of group psychodrama in the course of which there is an attempt to contain and give figuration to incestual and murderous actings. We discuss therapeutic issues when faced with this murderous hatred directed at the psychodrama-object.
Adolescence, 2021, 39, 2, 391-402.
We explore the issue of dropping out of school at the onset of adolescence with regard to the pubertary process that is starting, at the crossroads where a depressive core meets an “original” rereading of founding fantasies. The co-construction of subject and environment seems central here, as it summons up the dimension of the link, even if only to undermine it. A clinical vignette will illustrate our argument and allow us to explore the hypothesis that what causes the hitch at the start of adolescence is related to homoeroticism that has been called up again and will have to be overhauled.
Adolescence, 2021, 39, 2, 379-390.
Within the penal system we meet adolescents who have committed acts of violence in other institutional settings. Their traumatic past is not unrelated to their present-day actings. Incapable of articulating a request for help, they shun the treatment services that are supposed to receive them – or is it the other way around? Within the judicial system, the clinician can set up a treatment arrangement that can tame the link and gradually enable the patient to ask for help.
Adolescence, 2021, 39, 2, 367-378.
Some adolescents who have been placed in or oriented towards an institution present violent actings inside it. Rather than considering that they are not suited for any institution, we will show that an original rejection in their history prevents them from living inside an institution. Though history did not have a warm welcome in store for them, the institution can get the welcoming dimension working again as a therapeutic act.
Adolescence, 2021, 39, 2, 353-365.
This study focuses on the life paths of complex cases from the PJJ (Youth Legal Protection). A mixed, quantitative, psychodynamic and qualitative analysis of the files of the Etape project (Team for Adolescent Transitions and the Prevention of Exclusion) confirms our hypothesis that the lives of these adolescents follow a typical course. Affective deficiencies, domestic violence, repeated break-ups and passages to the act lay the groundwork for a difficult – perhaps impossible – encounter between the adolescent and the host institution, thus leading to “unplaceable” status.
Adolescence, 2021, 39, 2, 339-351.
The concept of borderline states raises questions about nosology, psychopathology and treatment. This borderline-concept will be approached, on one hand, with regard to the baby/teen problematic, and, on the other hand, from the perspective of institutional structures. The author stresses the importance of a two-way reading of the theory of deferred action, then recalls some principles of the baby/teen problematic. Lastly, the example of Therapeutic, Educative and Pedagogical Institutions (ITEP) is presented as a way of thinking about mediating structures.
Adolescence, 2021, 39, 2, 327-338.
The polysemy of adolescent actings is rich and varied. To shed light on the unique clinical area of the adolescent act, I think it is useful to look at the contributions of the psychosomatic, particularly at the harmful effects of the loss of a rich inner dynamic in favor of or as a counterpoint to an explosion of externalized conducts. We will end by offering some ideas about the paradox of disruptiveness in the context of adolescent essential depression, where impulsiveness co-exists with wandering.
Adolescence, 2021, 39, 2, 313-325.