Exploring some primary qualities of a secure bond, we note what, conversely, can hamper one’s ability to get through the adolescent process; we will connect this argument to the clinical situation of Joshua, an adolescent who suffers from psychopathy. This adolescent’s repeated passages to the act lead to a hypothesis of delusion contained by violent acts replaying a traumatic primal scene.
Adolescence, 2019, 37, 2, 313-323.
Analyzing the case of a matricidal adolescent, the author envisions the passage to the criminal act as an impasse in the pubertary process. A study of history and of laws pertaining to minors gives a better idea of how theories of psychopathology have evolved towards a theory of pubertary psychosis. By weaving together the history of law, of the penal system and of psychiatry, the author offers a reading of the psychical fact that extends to the wider context in which it appears.
Adolescence, 2019, 37, 2, 289-312.
Using a clinical account of a lengthy hospitalization in a psychiatric ward, the author focuses on the double function of transference repetition, examined through the prism of regression. The effects of regression, which are both harmful and binding, will be analyzed, with particular attention to instances of sadomasochistic acting as a way out of melancholic identification.
Adolescence, 2019, 37, 2, 281-288.
Using a clinical account of the treatment through psychodrama of an adolescent girl hospitalized for anorexia, the author will discuss different aspects of the way violence is summoned up against the one bearing the anorexic symptom. There is the violence of plunging into a treatment framework that compels the patient into renewed interaction with the object, and the healthy violence of the child within the adolescent who supports the turning around of hatred from auto-aggression to other-directed aggression.
Adolescence, 2019, 37, 2, 269-280.
There is no evidence regarding the use of a therapeutic contract in treating severe forms of anorexia, except that it seems necessary to find some way of providing a framework for the hate we encounter. Self-hatred and hatred of the other are characteristically experienced through the body rather than expressed; the contractual format remains an appropriate response that can help overcome this ordeal.
Adolescence, 2019, 37, 2, 247-267.
This article discusses how solutions attempted in the psychiatric treatment of adolescents hospitalized in a crisis unit can lead to an understanding of the degree and complexity of factors that contribute to the violence that is often the hallmark of this clinical field. Here as elsewhere, the adolescent is exploring different levels of containment that are nested like Russian dolls: overall containment, local containment, and individual containment.
Adolescence, 2019, 37, 2, 233-245.
The notion of violence in psychopathology has mainly to do with the amount of excitation that is unleashed. When thinking about violence in adolescence we must consider what has upset the adolescent’s economy to the point of overwhelming psychical resources. At this time of life, there is a conjunction between the sources of internal excitations and of excessive external stimulation, while investments of relations with the parents no longer have the same role in the psychical economy, hence the “trauma of adolescence”.
Adolescence, 2019, 37, 2, 225-232.