We approach the issue of the unplaceable adolescent from the perspective of a paradox, speaking of the necessary quest to be named by another; this will establish one as a subject. Treating adolescents at Youth Legal Protection, we are confronted with the violence of repetition, but also with powerlessness and confusion. It is essential that the hate of the transference – and in the transference – be heard in order to understand what is at stake for the adolescent relegated to this position of excluded object.
The polysemy of adolescent actings is rich and varied. To shed light on the unique clinical area of the adolescent act, I think it is useful to look at the contributions of the psychosomatic, particularly at the harmful effects of the loss of a rich inner dynamic in favor of or as a counterpoint to an explosion of externalized conducts. We will end by offering some ideas about the paradox of disruptiveness in the context of adolescent essential depression, where impulsiveness co-exists with wandering.
This article focuses on violent acts in the adolescent hospitalized in psychiatry, using a clinical case to discuss, on the one hand, how through the violent act and lack of symbolization, the adolescent will come to figure a pubertary impasse, inviting a hypothesis of pubertary psychosis; and on the other hand, how the clinician can open up a therapeutic perspective when faced with ruptures of the symbolic process that drive the adolescent to enact violence.
After more than seventy years of peace in western Europe, one may wonder what becomes of destructiveness in such unprecedented conditions. Perhaps we are witnessing what might be likened to “civil wars”: suicides, family break-ups, the policing of civilian life. After presenting two clinical vignettes, one illustrating intrafamilial wars, the other illustrating institutional wars, the author will compare these two forms and offer some considerations about the difference between individual and group passages to the act.
Exploring some primary qualities of a secure bond, we note what, conversely, can hamper one’s ability to get through the adolescent process; we will connect this argument to the clinical situation of Joshua, an adolescent who suffers from psychopathy. This adolescent’s repeated passages to the act lead to a hypothesis of delusion contained by violent acts replaying a traumatic primal scene.
Analyzing the case of a matricidal adolescent, the author envisions the passage to the criminal act as an impasse in the pubertary process. A study of history and of laws pertaining to minors gives a better idea of how theories of psychopathology have evolved towards a theory of pubertary psychosis. By weaving together the history of law, of the penal system and of psychiatry, the author offers a reading of the psychical fact that extends to the wider context in which it appears.
The author explores the functions of the adolescent body engaged in violent sexual acting-out behavior, using the case of Pierre, 15, who is incarcerated for rape. With reference to the third topic of C. Dejours (2003), we revisit the early phase of the relation with the primal object, then the traumatic deferred action of the pubertary, which puts to the test the topical splitting between the repressed unconscious and the forbidden unconscious that provokes violent sexual acts against the percept.
Using two clinical vignettes (one from an institutional therapeutic treatment, and the other from an individual treatment), the author investigates issues underlying the apparently “liberated” sexuality of two older adolescents: a tight, reciprocal clinging to the mother, in the absence of internalization of parental imagos that would enable true individuation. He calls attention to the psychopathological and therapeutic consequences of this.
The authors introduce different angles for thinking about adolescent sexualities. Have changes in society – social media, the recognition of minority sexualities – changed the representations and behaviors of adolescents? Treatments, institutional care, and cultural objects, viewed through the prism of a study of transference, offer valuable ground for reflecting on the complex relations between sexuality, violence and identity issues.
In adolescents who are incarcerated, psychical ways of functioning based on dependence and passion for the act, are actualized in the setting of the detention center. This article deals with the psychical adjustments of these adolescents and the forms that their violence takes when it emerges. Violent acts thus appear to be a defense against the excitation of the drives induced by “incarceration hyperstimulation” and the relational and institutional promiscuity inherent to the setting of the juvenile detention center.
Adolescence, 2018, 36, 2, 333-348.
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