This article will attempt to investigate the importance of the self-informing function of sensoriality in adolescence in its connections with dream work, of which figurability is an essential component. These reflections are supported by the narrative of the process of the treatment of an adolescent engaged in compulsive body-attacking conduct.
Adolescence, 2014, 32, 4, 719-733.
For adolescents evolving in treatments for “ attacks on the body ”, it is indispensable to work on the therapeutic setting in a very specific way. The use of institutional space allows them to find possibilities for investing transference spaces free of any paradoxical or harmful potential. The gamble on therapeutic effects is ambitious and complex, for the caregivers as much as for the youngsters. The necessity of taking into account the parent’s suffering, especially in its pubertary dimension, is indispensable to the success of the adolescent’s treatment plan.