This article explores the meaning of the staging of a misdemeanor in some adolescents. We will conceive of petty crime as a true language of the affect, modeled on the dream, but expressed in waking life. The misdemeanor’s way of elaboration transforms dream thoughts into sensory images so that the nature of inner feelings can be figured.
Adolescence, 2018, 36, 1, 97-108.
Compared with their male peers, girls commit few delinquent acts. But crimes and misdemeanors are not the only expression of violence and transgression that girls must deal with, either actively or passively. The various forms raise the question of whether certain modes of violent or non-violent transgression are specific to females and how they should be handled by the social welfare and judicial systems. This semiological puzzle is an open field for new research.
Adolescence, 2018, 36, 1, 13-21.
Anxiety about guilt, as Freud showed in 1916, may be the origin of transgressive behaviors. The delinquent passage to the act, distinguished by its intrapsychical dynamic of resorting to the act, fits in with Freud’s hypothesis. Adolescence can give rise to a feeling of guilt engendered by parricidal fantasies, but also to the need for punishment as the symbolic equivalent to homosexual submission to the father, who can confer his masculinity upon the son.
Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°4, pp. 935-947.