Today, the adolescent’s search for identity meets with new suggestions in terms of identification. By disentangling the issue of gender from that of sex, gender theories open up new perspectives for individual affirmation, thus opening up “man/woman” and “homosexual/heterosexual” binarities to other variations. The possibility of “choosing your gender” thus encounters the adolescent demand for the “right to self-determination”.
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 353-365.
François Richard’s interest in the treatment of adolescents and borderline states, on the one hand, and the cultural and psychosocial evolution, on the other, are at the center of his extremely rich new work, in which he brings these two dimensions together. The author will attempt to show a link between the increase of borderline pathologies and the evolution of civilization’s discontent, which is associated with a pervertization of the superego (contradictory double bind of liberation and puritanism).
Adolescence, 2022, 40, 1, 205-212.
This article explores the place and role of the experience of sound in the process of adolescence. Through several clinical vignettes, we will deal with different ways sonic identity can be readjusted in adolescence and the consequences of these, for both the individual and the group. We will also show therapeutic work can be carried out when these readjustments cannot be dealt with psychically.
Adolescence, 2018, 36, 2, 319-331.
This text shows how a psychoanalyst in Paris hears the way that young people, boys and girls, are seduced by the appeal of jihad. These young people are not fanatics. They are consulting a psychoanalyst on the advice of friends or family members. The author describes the significant identity issues and psychological wounds of these young people, but also their ideals and hopes.
Adolescence, 2018, 36, 2, 291-303.
“Radicalization” emerges in parents’discourse as a reason for seeking consultation for their children. In three clinical situations, it appears as a form of mediation used by adolescents to separate themselves from their parents and fill up a void in the transgenerational. “Traumatic racial mixing” is discussed as a factor in the identity process. The aim of this article is to understand the meaning of these radical engagements with the context of separation and individuation.
Adolescence, 2018, 36, 2, 263-274.
This article starts with the case of an adolescent who refuses instruction, and shows how this refusal may be sustained by a need to preserve an identity that is called into question by the teachings. It will show the extent to which educational transmission can cause in the recipient a reorganization of identity the originality of which is therefore in doubt.
Adolescence, 2017, 35, 2, 371-379.
Offering some reflections about identity work and psychical transmission between generations, this article observes the relationship between these two dimensions to understand the modes of psychical subjectivation, giving a central role to the paradigm of filiation.
Adolescence, 2017, 35, 2, 335-343.
The author will try to show that transmission, identifications, subjectivation, feeling of identity, identity suffering and pathological manifestations are registers that appear to be related in complex and sometimes paradoxical ways. Should not the various forms of identity construction in adolescence be considered along with today’s “civilization and its discontents”?
Adolescence, 2017, 35, 2, 269-276.
The author explores the links between crisis of transmission, crisis of transgenerational identifications, and crisis of identity, and the effects these have on adolescents’ identity construction. In our clinical practice, are we not confronted with the conflicts of these three domains and are we not, in the transference (and counter transference) potential supports for the three modes of object relations with the adolescents and families we encounter?
Adolescence, 2017, 35, 2, 261-268.
The author presents the activities of the “Collège Aquitain de Psychopathologie de l’Adolescent” (CAPA) and investigates the malaise of today’s adolescents, caught between the identificatory impasses and a lack of historical perspectives. The article then discusses clinical treatments.
Adolescence, 2017, 35, 2, 237-246.