The author explores the relation to the street from the clinical perspective of phobias and counter-phobias. Both are obstacles to the inside/outside passage and its psychical equivalent, the liaison between interiority and exteriority : without interiority, there is no exteriority and thus no exit through the inside/outside passage and generational and sexual differences. The theme of the “ inner gang ” is deepened in this sense. In the conception developed by the author, only the triangular space is co-extensive with the capacity for differentiating inside and outside, male and female, and different generations in their complementary relations. It is a therefore a passage : one involving the integration of turbulences brought on by the processes of adolescence.
Archives par mot-clé : Dominique Agostini
Dominique Agostini : an adolescent in the great war : bion
Using the « War Journal » (June 1917-January 1919) of Bion and the « Commentaries » he wrote 50 years later, the author establishes links between the war experience of the adolescent Bion and certain concepts created by the analyst Bion. Most notably, those of « catastrophic change », « nameless terror », « psychotic personality », and « group mentality ».
Dominique Agostini : the concept of « internal saboteur » in the work of W. R. D. Fairburn
This paper explores the « basic endo-psychical situation » described by Fairburn. This situation is that of a split « ego » ; in other words, a schizoid position that Fairburn considered to be central, and is the basis for his theory of mental structure. The « basic endo-psychical situation » is made up of three structures of the « ego » which, while roughly corresponding to Freud’s tripartite division, are conceived as « ego » structures that are intrinsically dynamic in relation to each other. It is the anti-libidinal ego structure, or « internal saboteur » that occupies the central position in this text.
Dominique Agostini : Melanie Klein, Analyst of Adolescents: The Case of “Ilse”
Having studied the case of “ Felix ” and the Kleinian concepts of internal objects and of unconscious fantasy illustrated by the case of this adolescent boy, the author uses the case of “ Ilse ” to explore Kleinian conceptions of female sexual identity.
Klein centered her analysis of Ilse on this adolescent girl’s envious sadism towards an internal mother who was, in fantasy, the owner of the father, and on the omnipotent guilt which mirrored these fantasies. This guilt robbed Ilse of her passage through “ psychical puberty ” and, consequently, of all the rest of her development. While the first part of the analysis sets Ilse in the latency phase, the attenuation of her guilt in analysis will improve her feeling of identity, of personal responsibility : Ilse becomes more genuine, more free.
Dominique Agostini : Melanie Klein, Analyst of Adolescents: III. The Case of “Willy”
Based on the case of “Felix,” which led to the concepts of internal objects and unconscious fantasies, and the case of “Ilse,” in which the focus was on the Kleinian concepts of feminine sexual identity, the author explores material from the analysis of “Willy” (aged fourteen). In this analysis, Klein illustrates and conceptualizes — as in the cases of Felix and Ilse — that revisiting the early Oedipal phase during adolescence is the condition <i>sine qua non</i> for the joint integrative development of psychic bisexuality and “psychic puberty.” Klein relates this work to the concepts of the feminine phase common to both sexes, of combining parents, and of male homosexuality.
Dominique Agostini : The Concepts of “the Ability to be Alone” (D.W. Winnicott) and “Sense of Loneliness” (M. Klein)
Through Klein and Winnicott’s studies of solitude, the author explores their divergences, especially concerning the role of the external object and the death drive. He highlights the extent to which these studies differ in tone. Winnicott conceives of the capacity to be alone as belonging to ecstasy. His rather optimistic conception reflects the joys of shared solitude. Klein, on the other hand, never swerves from a tone of desolation and nostalgia at the very heart of non-resignation and deep authenticity.
Dominique Agostini : Melanie Klein, Analyst of Adolescents: IV. The Case of “Fabien Especel”
Having studied the cases of « Felix », « Ilse », and « Willy », which illustrate the concepts of internal objects, unconscious fantasies and the feminine phase common to both sexes, the author deals with the case of « Fabien Especel » (aged 18). This adolescent is the hero of If I Were You…, Julien Green’s fantastic novel (1947), whose internal world Klein explored in « On Identification » (1955), almost « as though he were a real patient ». The normal and pathological aspects of projective identification are developed and deepened in « On Identification », through the « analysis » of Fabien Especel.
Dominique Agostini : Du divorce interne : impasse et dépassement
L’auteur explorera, au travers du matériel clinique d’une thérapie, d’une part l’impact de l’avènement pubertaire sur l’internalisation, bien avant la puberté, de parents profondément désunis. D’autre part, les transformations qui, vectorisées par le processus thérapeutique, président à la réconciliation des parents internes. L’auteur développera que cette réconciliation féconde le processus d’adolescence et en favorise son aboutissement, la capacité de commencer sa vie d’adulte.
L’exposé clinique accordera une attention toute particulière aux séparations des vacances. Vacances qui, pour les parties infantiles, représentent toujours les rapports sexuels des parents, la grossesse de la mère. Le matériel illustrera que ces ruptures du cadre thérapeutique réveillent, avec le divorce interne, des « terreurs sans nom » en collusion avec le fantasme des « parents combinés ». Divorce interne et parents combinés apparaîtront comme obstacles majeurs à l’entrée dans la vie d’adulte.
Dominique Agostini : “ manic defences ”, “ psychical puberty ” et bisexuality
The author argues that, according to their degree of omnipotence and their degree of ego identification, manic defences (Klein, 1934) can either open or close access to bisexuality that is harmonious enough to preside over one’s passage through psychical puberty. This study starts off with historical and metapsychological references relating to the fundamental concepts of melancholy, mania and manic defences. Afterwards, the author links the title concept of manic defences to Œdipal conflicts and conflicts over dependence and separation, all of which are inherent to psychical puberty. In so doing, he differentiates, insofar as these conflicts are concerned, their pathological stumbling blocks from the turbulences they ordinarily stir up. In the course of the article, there is a specification of the bonds of interdependence that psychical puberty and manic defences conjointly maintain with the notion of dependencies – normal, mixed, or negative – and the feeling of sexual identity, of belonging to one sex or the other.
Adolescence, 2008, T. 26, n°1, pp. 221-236.
Marie-Christine Aubray, Dominique Agostini : the hero’s work
To investigate the links between the work of adolescence and the work of the hero, the authors bring together a mythical hero, Heracles and Dostoyevsky’s adolescent hero, Arkadi.
The adolescent who emerges victorious from the trials of the pubertary and engages in the adolescens process, is a hero. This passage implies the coming together of two aporias : parricide/infanticide and mortality/immortality.
Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°2, pp. 299-312.