The possibility of psychanalysis in adolescence raises the question of the existance of psychoanalysis every time repression is secondary in the patient’s problematic. Using concepts of subjectivation and the subjectivating agent, this article proposes to describe the main principles of a possible practice of psychoanalysis with the adolescent.
Adolescence, 2011, T. 29 n°2, pp. 271-280.
Is there such thing as psychoanalysis of the adolescent ? Two points of view will be refuted, one which considers adolescence as the moment of repression after-the-fact and one which is frightened of the danger of enflamed passions in a two-person clinical situation. The history of theoretical elaborations about adolescence introduces one to a conception of the encounter between the psychoanalyst and the adolescent that can shed light on psychoanalytical practice with the adult.
The Freudian method of interpreting drive conflict and the transference is applicable with the adolescent, as is demonstrated by the treatment of a young adolescent presenting anorexic and addictive disorders. Here borderline ways of functioning correspond to contra-phobic projective defenses, repression being covered by splitting.
Some hypotheses are advanced concerning current adolescent and young adult pathologies (paradoxical recourse to forms of excitation meant to de-sexualize, externalization of psychical interiority) in a context of « civilization and its discontents ».
Adolescence, 2011, T. 29 n°2, pp. 245-270.
I do not share the idea of deep-seated changes in adolescence – which is still a narcissistic crisis – nor in the psychoanalysis or psychotherapy of adolescents. However, the socio-cultural field has altered, and perhaps therapists are the first ones to feel the effects of this.
Adolescence, 2011, T. 29 n°2, pp. 231-235.