Over the past decade some French adolescents have identified with the violent ideology promoted by ISIS and have forged ties with some of its members. As a consequence of this, some are in psychotherapy as part of a court-ordered treatment. Using the treatment of five of these adolescents, we suggest that this identification be considered as possibly representing a “radical solution” to the terror of always feeling attacked.
Adolescence, 2022, 40, 1, 147-159.
Astonishment and surprise are motors for psychic rebinding. Through the bonus of pleasure these technical tools give rise to, they permit us to offer a new narration of what is causing the problem. These concepts are all the more useful in that they enter into the framework of puberty. The psychotherapist must do more to maintain a great capacity for astonishment and surprise in order to foster new possibilities for psychic binding, while avoiding the ever present risk of fright.
Images are especially powerful for adolescents and can be a way of expressing suffering. In the often noisy treatment of adolescents there is much to see, without reducing it merely to this manifest aspect. The use of images may also be part of the process of reinforcing and protecting narcissism. Thinking in images, as an intermediary for speech and a procedure that helps construct the psychical dynamic, can be a support for psychotherapeutic work.
Adolescence, 2020, 38, 2, 369-382.
The discovery of individual analytical psychodrama has offered clinicians new possibilities for the psychological treatments of adolescents. Using an excerpt from the treatment of a boy at the onset of puberty, this article will discuss the link between psychodrama and two-person improvisation. This reflection will focus on the possibility of borrowing the interpretive strategy of psychodrama to help a dual relation whose dynamic is stalled.
Adolescence, 2018, 36, 1, 183-191.
Using a clinical vignette, the authors revisit silence and the inhibition of psychical function in adolescents. They emphasize the work of the preconscious, which plays a major role in dealing with the excitations and genitality proper to the adolescent process, and try to articulate this with a theory of therapeutic technique with adolescents.
This article tells of the psychotherapeutic treatment of an adolescent who was abandoned, adopted and placed in an educational institution. It deals with the impact in adolescence of earlier experiences of abandonment and the later ability of adoptive parents and institutions to cope with these. The steps of the therapeutic process and the troubles presented by the young boy are described through transferential exchanges and adjustments which give meaning to the treatment and its evolution.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 4, 753-761.
Revisiting some moments in the psychotherapy of an adolescent girl adopted as a baby, who later sought treatment after a suicide attempt, the analytical process is view as analogous to a process of reciprocal adoption, including the adoptive parents who entrust the child to the therapist. The analytical work fosters in the adolescent the adoption of split-off parts of herself, leading her to re-appropriate her history for herself. Becoming and adult entails the possibility to choose one’s affiliations: she will be able to adopt in her turn.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 4, 733-742.
The long-term effects of serious traumatic brain injury in the child or adolescent are often underestimated. The seriousness of a brain injury’s lasting effects, especially cognitive and behavioral ones, will be increased in inverse proportion to the age at the trauma occurred. Using an account of the psychotherapy of an adolescent who has suffered a traumatic brain injury, the author suggests a specific psychotherapy setting for brain-injured adolescents.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 3, 511-524.
When childhood dysharmonies are included in autism spectrum disorders, we should ask ourselves what is their place in psychopathology. If these initially fragile children can benefit from very early intervention, they can quickly make up for the enormous difficulties they had out the outset. This highlights the importance of early detection of these pathologies through the combined knowledge of devellopment, psychic function and theories of intersubjectivity.
Adolescence, 2015, 33, 4, 779-788.
Developments in digital technology provide psychotherapists with the possibility of new treatments. This article with describe what is specific to French digital mediations. It will point out the advantages and disadvantages of online therapies as well as their indications and counter-indications. A discussion of a vignette of psychotherapy of an adolescent girl will serves as an illustration of how email can be a worthwhile mediator. A hypothesis will be posited regarding the processes that have enabled the changes observed in this online treatment.
Adolescence, 2015, 33, 3, 511-521.