The authors explore the role and the place of silence in clinical work with young adolescents for whom the reflecting function could not be structured in a stable enough way. In order for these patients to be able to latch onto the analyst’s silence as a space-time allowing them to dive into themselves and listen to themselves speaking, preliminary work is required. In these difficult treatments, it will be essential to listen to body language and to the language of acts, as well as to the transference onto the setting.

Adolescence, 2025, 43, 1, 35-48.