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.
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Daniela Lucarelli : modifications of technique
Using the works of F. Richard and A. M. Nicolò, the author encourages discussion about the specific nature of analytic work with adolescents and the adjustments to the treatment setting which this may require – theoretically as well as clinically.
Paolo Fabozzi : styles, tools and moving forces in analytic treatment
Through a combined reading of the works of Ph. Gutton and V. Bonamino, the author examines three interconnected aspects of analytic work with adolescent patients : the styles, the tools, and the moving forces at work in the analytic treatment. This gives an idea of the particular position of the analyst working with adolescents, who must be ready to be transformed into a mediating object in order to re-start a capacity for thought and to enable the patient’s intimate relationship with himself to be restored.
Vincenzo Bonaminio : « these anxieties are not mine ». the struggle to assimilate « foreign » sensations and « strange » affects
This article springs from an exploration of persecutory anxieties and defenses in adolescence, starting with the case of Osvaldo, who has been in analysis for four years. The article retraces the first three years of his treatment and shows the effect of these persecution anxieties on the construction of the transference and counter-transference, as well as their role of assimilating the Self when threats of disintegration and annihilation overwhelm the subject
Anna Maria Nicolò : the care and treatment of difficult adolescents. notes on some changes in technique
The specific nature of work with adolescents requires an adjustment of the classical analytical setting. Using cases of difficult adolescents in contexts of breakdown or arrested development, the author discusses and illustrates the notion of adjustments to the setting. She investigates the place of interpretation, its specific character in the treatment of adolescents, and the value of combining interpretive with other tools in order that the individual may be able to historicize his or her traumatic experiences.
Béatrice Mabilon-Bonfils : digital practices, between writing and sociability
With the intensification and increasing complexity of communications using new technologies, a new public space is emerging, one which goes beyond the virtual/real division, into an interweaving of social arrangements and partially virtual communities. The « being-together » of adolescents is expressed in this space by a reconfiguration of different forms of interaction, using « chat-French ». Are these digital language practices an obstacle to the acquisition of linguistic and social abilities ?
Adolescence, 2012, 30, 1, 217-229.
Hélène Riazuelo : an adolescent between two machines. dialysis and computer
Starting from a case study, this paper addresses the complexity of simultaneously performing a « work of adolescence » and a « work of disease » for adolescents suffering from a serious somatic disease since childhood and being also under dialysis for a shorter amount of time. Being dependent on an artificial kidney, a nursing team, and his mother, the adolescent can hardly also grow as an adolescent. Dmitri is an adolescent who whose corporal changes have been thwarted by disease and death. During psychoanalytic work, he tries to elaborate this, starting with some video game experience. In video games, and hence, through another machine (the computer), he creates and then incarnates an avatar that lies between two universes, the real one, and a virtual one. From this state, he constructs a tale in which life and game fade into each other, where reality and the virtual world melt together in order to make the latter more bearable and also in order to make more bearable the idea that he is bound to live with a machine. This idea materializes by means of a game which he can both control and share, and which therefore serves as a transitional space
Adolescence, 2012, 30, 1, 199-215.
Geoffroy Willo, Sylvain Missonnier : cybernetic « emergence », an operator of the transference in psychosis
This article recalls the main steps of a « psychotherapy by virtual » of a young psychotic teenager. In this article, we will see how the use of a computer game proves to be a vector of a first transference address from the psychotic to the clinician.
Therefore, the virtual will be studied through the magnifying glass of the pathology, revealing a function of « emergence » specific to cybernetics.
This function is triple. Firstly, this contingency loads the emergence promises, allowing the user to expect from the machine anything but, and much more than, it is able to deliver. Secondly, this emergence gives the machine the appearance of autonomy, which helps the patient to delude himself into not considering himself as the origin of his representations. Lastly, this generator of representations enables the symptom by giving it a form, thus processing what Freud called a « force of healing drive » preparing the way for a transference relation
Adolescence, 2012, 30, 1, 179-189
Michel Hajji : the role of video games in psychological counseling
Do video games have the potential to act as a vehicle for effective psychological counseling ? This was the question we tried to answer in several experimental video game workshops that were held with adolescents in a youth counseling center. Connecting elements between the clinical framework and the virtual world can create a space where youths can feel comfortable to express themselves. It is during post-game debriefing that the effectiveness of this medium is put to the test. At the end of this article we try to shed the light on whether the final creation involved in this virtual tool is subject to an interpretation or to a simple act of reading the story of the avatar.
Adolescence, 2012, 30, 1, 169-177.
Benjamin Thiry : world of warcraft : a thematic and psychoanalytic approach
The Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game World of Warcraft (WoW) has a complex and deep storyline. The player moves in this frame that gives meaning to every performed action. We offer a thematic and psychoanalytic interpretation of the themes used in WoW. Through quests, we highlight the concepts of introjection, passing the position of omnipotence, management of aggressive impulses and internalization of the civilizing process. The game, like the fairy tale, seems to replay psychological problems metaphorically inscribed in a meaningful scenario.
Adolescence, 2012, 30, 1, 159-167.