This article recounts the psychical work that teams in institutions have to undergo during the intake and treatment of adolescent girls whose delinquent behavior resonates painfully with their own emotions and fantasies. It hypothesis is that in their transgressing acts, these adolescents girls resort to offensive, defensive and figurative acts – which require institutional teams to do a demanding work of elaboration.

Adolescence, 2018, 36, 1, 133-146.