The very large number of adolescents who smoke cannabis in a festive – or recreational – way do not, of course, have an addictive relationship with “ joints ”. But it is interesting to note that the use of this product is never far from various aspects of the conflict that constitutes adolescent crisis : in addition to providing an alternative – or a complement – to alcohol-induced intoxication, it is a matter of modifying in a limited way what is thought and felt, so as to improve relations with other adolescents, familiarize oneself with desire and first sexual experiences, facilitate manifestations of humor and, sometimes, manage excessive sensitivity and disturbing sexual and aggressive fantasies. Psycho-educational interviews permit these adolescents to question more generally the malaise peculiar to their age, its relational consequences and the manner in which they try to remedy it. In this, the family may usefully be associated with the treatment.
Under this title, a general theory of the social bond is proposed. It should allow for an exploration of the way a subject manages to find accommodation in a living-together, without giving up its singularity, and without putting the social link in danger. We call the logical moment of this solution the « adolescent moment »; starting from this, we try to propose issues and to extract the pre-conditions for possibilities.
The authors consider the language as the place where the subjects build their identity. They examine how current post-modernity is changing our ways of speaking. They suppose that a new newspeak is showing up, changing widely the conditions of subjectivation and socialization, especially during adolescence.
In this article, the epistemic confrontation between psychoanalysis and the social sciences is re-problematized using the arguments of A. Ehrenberg (and other researchers in sociology) and hypotheses about the specificity of the current discontent in the civilization. Freudian ideas are brought to the point where their subjectivism paradoxically introduces a perspective of renewing historicity. Current forms of discontent in civilization (contradiction between morality and cynicism, complementary relation between individualism and gregariousness, sexual liberation masking a lack of satisfaction, suspension of judgment, prevalence of functioning based on primary processes, violent acts, disorders of subjectivation) are depicted and commented upon.
Adolescence, 2011, T. 29 n° 3, pp. 571-582.
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