In the context of the treatment of transgender and non-binary adolescents in a public psychological service in Brazil from 2022 to 2023, the author met youths with mental health issues who identified as trans during the coronavirus pandemic. She analyzed two clinical vignettes in which the adolescents made threats against their parents if the latter would not give permission for their child’s hormone treatments. The article offers some reflections on possible clinical strategies for handling such situations.
Using excerpts from a treatment carried out during the pandemic, the author explores the connections between the inner attack of the drive and the external attack of collective events shared by the patient and the therapist. These recent collective events may echo some adolescent processes marked by the “internal saboteur” and by repetition compulsion. A transitional space is established where the psychic functioning appears as a third party that can be discussed by the two participants for as long as is necessary.
dolescence, 2022, 40, 1, 53-67.
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