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.
This article’s central hypothesis is that the central conflict of Lisa, a young bulimic woman, is transformed by fantasies of omnipotence. Lisa’s bulimic behaviors imply a loss of boundaries between self and not-self, leading to violations of the law. Her incestual complicity with her mother prompts us to explore issues of personalization and differentiation characterizing the subjectivation-work of an adolescent girl and its impact on the construction of her femininity.
This article focuses on incarcerated adolescents from immigrant families. Analysis of their discourse shows that they feel rejected by society, are ashamed to be themselves and suffer from identity issues. Legitimizing their speech within the context of a support group helps them become receptive to an encounter and enables them to make sense of their transgressions and their history. In this way they have been able to make the psychic adjustments necessary for elaborating their cultural compromise, which helps them to be reconciled with their multiple affiliations.
In an epidemiological study within a general school population, 450 youngsters in public secondary school who describe themselves as runaways were compared to 11,734 youngsters who had not run away from home.
Running away from home is associated with “ psychical malaise ” and with violence, both endured and enacted; the runaway is suicide-prone, violent, delinquent ; he abuses both legal and illegal substances. The runaway seeks help and consultation, and it is necessary to find multi-focus treatments when faced with the diversity of manifestations : running away, suicide attempts, delinquency, and legal and illegal substance abuse.
Starting with the ambivalent way the delinquent minor is regarded, this article will show how at different times one favors either prevention and education or – because the delinquent is perceived more as a danger to society – exclusion and confinement.
A story that is continually being played out around the issue of « open » or « closed » institutions.
This article deals with the relations that youths from urban housing projects and their families have with the law. The regulation of their lives by obscure and infra-legal norms interposes itself and relegates the official norm to the background. It becomes strange, threatening and inhospitable. So that the juvenile justice system must work with this widening gap if it is to avoid the risk of tipping into repressive violence.
This article presents a brief clinical vignette with a young murderer, who had presented behavioral disorders in adolescence and was refused treatment on the grounds that no demand had been made, to discuss and critique the concept of « demand ». The authors give several reasons why it is impossible for these adolescents to verbalize a demand for treatment, while their behavior is in itself equivalent to a demand unconsciously addressed to the other. Theories which hypothesize the specific nature of the language of the act in adolescence are recalled: these allow us to think about the therapeutic settings and arrangements that would be necessary to care for the psychical suffering of these subjects. Adolescence, 2013, 30, 4, 919-933.
Crimes and misdemeanors are, according to Durkheim, accepted terms that come from the shared conscience. But how is this conscience forged and passed on ? What is the criminal act ? Is every antisocial act due to pathology ? Is there an epistemology common to the field of sociology and psychology ? We will attempt to address these questions and their implications within the field of juvenile justice and the care of minors. Adolescence, 2013, 30, 4, 881-917.
An examination of the influx of delinquent minors highlights the major trends resulting from the activities of different services concurrent with an increasing penal response. But above all, the results of this examination illustrate the growing diversity of types of delinquency and of juridical and institutional paths that may be taken. The most common case is that of delinquent minors who go through the judicial system once and do not re-offend. On the contrary, cases of delinquent minors who commit the most serious crimes or are « repeat offenders » are more rare. All these cases call for specific treatments carried out in accordance with the characteristics of the minors in question and the underlying psychological dynamic of the actions and their consequences. Adolescence, 2013, 30, 4, 843-855.
The confinement of minors is the starkest image of punishment, and for minors the most damaging in terms of mental health, development and recidivism. Can modifications undertaken in penal institutions for minors reduce the affiliating and stigmatizing effects of incarceration ? Do the educative detention centers that have been constructed offer a favorable outlook for a pedagogical undertaking ? Can this be envisioned without taking into consideration the psychical dimension of the anti-social act ? We will examine these questions in this article after an examination of the supposed etiology of delinquency. Adolescence, 2013, 30, 4, 783-796.
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