The author explores the functions of the adolescent body engaged in violent sexual acting-out behavior, using the case of Pierre, 15, who is incarcerated for rape. With reference to the third topic of C. Dejours (2003), we revisit the early phase of the relation with the primal object, then the traumatic deferred action of the pubertary, which puts to the test the topical splitting between the repressed unconscious and the forbidden unconscious that provokes violent sexual acts against the percept.
In Les poétiques du corps (Poetics of the Body), Sylvie Le Poulichet continues her exploration of clinical dimensions of the unformed or impersonality. She emphasizes the role of archaic terrors and a lack of transmission about origins, which will either cause defects in “embodying,” or give rise to anxiety identifications, or lead to the creation of fantastical theories in adolescence.
The author approaches hypersexuality as the repeated impossibility of controlling pleasure-seeking sexual behavior, pursuing it despite its negative physical, psychological and social consequences. Nymphomaniac (L. Von Trier), Jeune et Jolie (F. Ozon), La Tête haute (E. Bercot), along with two adolescent girls who have been victims of childhood abandonment or sexual abuse, offer an opportunity for studying the traumatic origins of hypersexuality in adolescence.
The story of the transitioning of young Lara in Lukas Dhont’s film Girl leads to reflection on the representation of the body of trans subjects outside of artistic productions. This article offers an analysis of this issue, with reference to studies of the production of transidentity narratives.
Sidonie Csillag is the young homosexual woman patient, an account of whose treatment Freud published in 1920. The treatment of five sessions per week lasted six months. However, it remains, even in Freud’s own opinion, a treatment marked by the impossibility of any encounter with the adolescent girl. We will re-investigate this non-encounter in the light of queer theory and Gender Studies. We will see how issues of gender and queerness can interest psychoanalysis, particularly in relation to the treatment of adolescents.
Gender incongruity in the adolescent is currently drowned out by all the questions that have arisen about gender dysphoria in general. Psychoanalytical studies on this topic are rare. Therefore, after a brief presentation of current work on gender incongruity in the adolescent, the author will investigate the psychodynamic aspects of this phenomenon using excerpts from consultations and psychoanalytic reflections on gender and adolescence.
This study focuses on the frequency of comorbid psychiatric issues in trans adolescents with an associated diagnosis of gender dysphoria who are treated in the transidentity service of the CHRU of Lille. The study includes 43 patients, 72.1 % of whom have at least one associated psychiatric diagnosis, anxiety disorders being the most prevalent. This study provides confirmation of the great psychic, indeed psychiatric, vulnerability of this population.
This article presents the Photolangage®method in the treatment of adolescent acting-out behaviors. It will show how this framework fosters processes of binding and symbolization in a group setting, as well as the effects of a double containment of drive movements, enabling the figuration of traumatic traces from non-symbolized experiences.
Using an encounter with an adolescent girl who committed an act of violence directed at the face, this article will discuss the role of the face and that of the disfiguring movement in the sexuation process of the adolescent girl. In its continuity with the body, the face is subjected to the violence of the pubertary process and to the demands of the work of the feminine. Failure to integrate a sexually differentiated face can lead to anxieties of disfigurement and defenses relating to the face, or else to acts of disfiguring violence.
The article reflects on the specific ways of caring for adolescents who have committed acts of sexual violence and are in court-ordered treatment. Such treatments and the paradoxical forms of subjective expression they entail require us to re-think our settings and our conceptual tools in order to construct a therapeutic environment. The cases we present show how our thinking comes to resonate with feelings of breakdown, annihilation, and the possibility of leading these patients to work through psychic experiences.
Adolescence, 2019, 37, 1, 71-83.
Revue semestrielle de psychanalyse, psychopathologie et sciences humaines, indexée AERES au listing PsycINFO publiée avec le concours du Centre National du Livre et de l’Université de Paris Diderot Paris 7