The structure of psychoanalytic group therapy (PGT) entails an anamorphic relationship with that of the dream’s transformative work. The dream and the group are two subjective and societal constants. The author emphasizes the links of figurabilty between primal scenality, dream scenality, adolescent scenality and psychodramatic scenality. He analyzes their involvement in the symbolic effectiveness of the PGT setting with adolescents, especially borderline adolescents.
Is the friend a “ same”, a “ model ”, a “ figure of same-sexed investment ” ? These questions are reviewed using two clinical accounts and several propositions. First of all, the Friend occurs within a potential space, a “ between –two ” and is not to be confused with the subject. Then, it appears clinically (case of Sabrina) that the Friend is often the condition of the subject’s encounter with an object of love and eroticisation. Thus there is a triangulation complex implying : Subject, Friend, love object. A series of dialectical operations define their bonds according to a complex mode of resemblance/difference.
The Freudian model of Œdipal triangulation is mobilized, notably through family romance, to analyze the clinical account of Sophie. Desires that are incestuous insofar as fratricidal would have their place in the terms of romantic vaudeville between Subject, object, Friend… We conclude by suggesting that the juvenile period be considered as a amicable Œdipal romance, forged by investments in the Friend and the object. The concept of the coat of arms completes the dialectical process related to the Subject-Friend bond, thus becoming emblematic of what we call Friendship.
The avatar may be treated as a double of the self or as a companion, a guide whom one follows or a slave to whom one gives orders. But in any case, its owner is invited to engage here in three complementary forms of symbolization: sensory-motor, imaged, and verbal.
Thus it can embody a fragment of oneself, a person one has known, admired or feared, even someone that one has imagined on the basis of stories one has heard or a family legend. This exploration can enable the construction of a potential space or, on the contrary, foster disavowal. Asking a player to speak of the choice and the history of his avatar is an essential moment of psychotherapy.
The « Maisons des Adolescents » treatment centers of two districts around Paris are built on a network of pluri-professional workers dealing with adolescents. They provide access to low threshold primary and secondary care services, as well as organizing referrals to other services. They also provide support and training to professionals and help them share some difficulties. They enhance the links between professionals, provide training and exchange groups. But they also have some paradoxes, like adults’ ambivalent opinion of adolescence. The fact that psychiatrists are actively involved in settings that sustain « mental health » is also questioned. When clinical referral is needed, the authors underline the effects of their active implication in the local network, in terms of symbolic effects and dynamic effects in the clinical encounter with the adolescent. The most important thing is to make the encounter real and supportive for the identification and identity processes of adolescence.
This article provides a combined commentary of the works of A. M. Nicolò and F. Richard, and raises the question of what conditions are necessary for analytical treatment in adolescence. The particularity of the analyst’s position is imagined by means of the mythological figure of the chimera, a hybrid character representing the therapist’s receiving capacities, which can tolerate a break in the uncertain boundaries between Ego and non-Ego, and make possible an emergence from primal thinking and paradoxical thoughts.
Plans for isolated foreign minors are located at the crossroads where the migratory imagination, the person’s or family’s dreams of the future and the personalized plan constructed with the help of educators come together. Very often, these are opposed to a practice wherein adaptation to reality is supposed to be accomplished by giving up dreams viewed as « utopian ». Using an anthropological study involving twenty young isolated foreign minors (MIE) cared for in Socially Oriented Children’s Centers (MECS) in the Aquitaine region, and D. W. Winnicott’s concept of potential space, this article suggests a different way of thinking about the construction of projects for these youngsters, one which considers their dreams for the future as tools in caring for them.
Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°3, pp. 633-649.
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