The works of D. Meltzer are internationally renowned; however, his works on adolescence are relatively little known in France. In this article, we investigate two central paths: we give a synthesis the essential aspects of Meltzer’s conception of adolescence in order to make them better known, then we show how his representation of groups of adolescents contributes to his representation of adolescence.
Adolescence, 2026, 44, 1, 169-182.
We propose to revisit the concept of infantile psychosis through the story of Youssef. When the therapeutic situation is confronted with particularly massive transference movements, an encounter can be co-constructed around the phenomenon of confusion. According to this principle, it is a matter of accepting this temporary state in order to start towards a process of transformation and differentiation. The relational body can, in this regard, appear as an original anchor point.
Adolescence, 2026, 44, 1, 155-167.
When faced with adolescent scarifications, care providers waver between powerlessness and guilt, sometimes even to the point of acting out their aggressiveness. As a way of getting beyond control issues, group work helps to transform personal questioning into professional questioning. The therapeutic posture then becomes that of a caregiver who is able to put up with failure and hate, to let himself be deformed with being destroyed (or destroying himself), thus supporting the process of separation in adolescence.
Adolescence, 2026, 44, 1, 141-153.
In Mexico, within a context of violence, psychic constructions are affected by trauma. When the socio-cultural and familial environment offers aggressive scenes, psychic hostility in adolescence necessarily intensifies. Using a setting based on psychoanalysis, we will show how playful and artistic resources enable an exploration of identity constructions and traumatic traces.
Adolescence, 2026, 44, 1, 129-140.
The imaginary constructions of Léo, aged 20, are all-mighty and protective war machines that play out in dystopian narratives. They reveal the underlying presence of an influencing machine that has something paranoid and threatening for the pubertary. In tension with this influencing machine, Léo’s “de-influencing machine” tends to counter and reverse the destructive drives and support the groundwork for a unified body image.
Adolescence, 2026, 44, 1, 115-127.
Adolescence is marked by uncertainties and psychic fragility exacerbated by a world in crisis and at war. Using an encounter mediated by a psychological assessment, we have tried to reflect upon what makes the tyrant fascinating. Identification with the hero, whether good or tyrannical, bears witness to a search for meaning and re-narcissisation. The role of the clinical psychologist is to accompany without imposing a model, allowing the young person to construct his or her own subjectivity.
Adolescence, 2026, 44, 1, 103-114.
During the passage through adolescence, made up of paradoxes and internal conflicts, between autonomy and restriction, adolescents are subjected to pressures and violence exacerbated by a threatening social context. “War” symbolizes their quest to exist, which is marked by destructive behaviors, and reveals the anxiety and affective fragility of youngsters faced with a world where the absence of memory and of the transmission of ideals desensitize one towards to violence.
Adolescence, 2026, 44, 1, 87-101.
A clinical situation encountered in the context of the Youth Judicial Protection system will enable us to explore the issue of violent radicalization and the desire to fight in adolescence. Demands for destruction should be understood as a problem of fusion and separation with an archaic maternal figure. In this pubertary context of fragile narcissism and identity, the attraction of war would become a recourse against archaic annihilation anxieties.
Adolescence, 2026, 44, 1, 75-85.
Family wars are rooted in the ambivalence of affective links. Love and hate are not mutually exclusive: they cohabit within suffocating proximity. Marital conflicts, sibling rivalries, impossible expectations, all feed into tensions which, if they have no outlet, are transformed into lasting oppositions. To construct himself, the young person must oppose, sometimes violently. In this struggle for autonomy, the home becomes the theater of a true positional war.
Adolescence, 2026, 44, 1, 75-85.
This article describes the first stages of the treatment of a schizophrenic patient who is violently opposed to care. This violence is understood as the impossibility of investing the object, which endangers the patient’s own Ego. The therapeutic situation requires that the object be imposed on the patient, which leads to an erotomaniac-type relation. The end of war that has been imposed in this way takes different forms; what is at stake in the end is separation and loss.
Adolescence, 2026, 44, 1, 47-60.