The author proposes to decline the word “cloistered” in the masculine, using the treatment of males who withdraw socially in adolescence. To do this, she will explore what is specific to the construction of narcissism, boundaries, and the processing of loss in boys. She will then show how these components take part in the boy’s journey through adolescence. Lastly, she will illustrate her arguments with a clinical account, which leads to the issue of the mirror function.
Activity seems to fulfill important functions for the work of masculinity that takes place during adolescence. What happens when this work is hampered by somatic illness? In light of a clinical vignette, these functions of differentiation/delimitation, of containing and support, but also of experimentation and virile potency will be explored.
At a time of technological changes, the contemporary adolescent fashions new modes of intersubjective organization (sms, chat, mail, networks, etc.) by producing multiple figures of his new reference points. The author invites the reader to follow the chaotic movement of this evolution, piecemeal, as suggested by this fragmentary mode that runs counter to the abecedary.
Starting from the clinical case of a high level sportive adolescent girl (in archery) not presenting any pathological structured organization, the author analyzes the processes through which the ego ideal is rehandled. Such processes are stressed through the analysis of the symptom of counter‑achievement and relation difficulties of the adolescent girl. The stress is put on the loss trial (symbolical castration) imposed by the rehandlings of the ego ideal : a giving up of childhood ego ideal and parental dependence going along with it. The castration anxiety thus shifted onto the sportive competition (to win/to lose) offers a metaphorical prop to the expression of the conflict and the material wherefrom one is compelled to deal with the psychical difficulty.
Starting from the clinical case of a high level sportive adolescent girl (in archery) not presenting any pathological structured organization, the author analyzes the processes through which the ego ideal is rehandled. Such processes are stressed through the analysis of the symptom of counter-achievement and relation difficulties of the adolescent girl. The stress is put on the loss trial (symbolical castration) imposed by the rehandlings of the ego ideal : a giving up of childhood ego ideal and parental dependence going along with it. The castration anxiety thus shifted onto the sportive competition (to win/to lose) offers a metaphorical prop to the expression of the conflict and the material wherefrom one is compelled to deal with the psychical difficulty.
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