Using the term “openness” the author will focus his reflection (illustrated by two clinical vignettes) on the conditions that can foster the engagement of older adolescent patients in psychotherapeutic work. To protect against the fear of submission on the one hand, and the fear of loss of identity on the other, the analyst’s overture to a certain measure of flexibility concerning the setting, while maintaining his neutrality, helps establish of useful distance, both for the analyst and the patient.
The signature is a complex act which partakes of the trace and of its erasure. Between mimicry and self-affirmation, it allows one to approach the question of the name in the adolescent. By extension, we will explore other modes of signature in adolescence, investigating the relevance of this designation: one can reasonably wonder if it is still a signature. Who signs in adolescence ? To what degree do the various ways of expression, which are often distancing practices, come to « sign » something of the subject ? Above all, this work tries to illustrate the way in which fantasies of self-foundation can both foster and hinder the work of subjectivation, and so doing, open, or not open, the passage.
Adolescence, 2008, T. 26, n°4, pp. 1023-1035.
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