Adoption revives the psychical stakes of the debt proper to every filiation, a debt that feels unbearable in adolescence. Adolescent protest in adoptive filial relationships has a specific characteristic, demolishing the theme of truth and putting in its place that of parental legitimity. This is not without consequences for adoption protocols.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 4, 795-805.
Adoption is not predictive of psychopathological troubles in adolescence. Nevertheless, clinicial experience shows that there is a tendency towards acting out in some adopted adolescents who are “potientially vulnerable” insofar as they present narcissistic fragility.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 4, 785-794.
abandonment, the necessary prelude to adoption, is here conceived of as the first step that enables filiation. The adoptive child must himself abandon his birth parents in order to adopt his new parents. This reappropriation of abandonment is made inevitable by the subjectivation of adolescence. It requires that one get past the real trauma of rejection in order to inscribe it as the structuring trauma of the loss and the gift. It affects every subject when he or she re-establishes filiation in adolescence.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 4, 773-783.
Two clinical cases will be used to support the thesis that the term “biological parent” is without meaning, an impossible (real) that is unsettling for adopted children. This would be the case for any child, even one who was not adopted, for whom the notion of biological parent belongs to the register of the unsaid. The biological parent belongs to the real and has no place. He/she is an oxymoron. Only parents who assume the responsibilities of parents count for the child. They are the parents the child has adopted.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 4, 763-772.
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.
Though adoption in adolescence often happens without serious problems, there are nevertheless situations where the collusion between traumatic aspects linked to the child’s past and its reactivation in adolescence, and the vulnerability of the parents, prevent any affiliation or grafting. The author has called these situations of great individual and familial distress “survival states” in reference to the writings of J. Altounian.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 4, 743-752.
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 silent adoption entails a contract between several parties: the foster child, the family social worker, the institution, and the parents. This adoption arises partly from the need for the child to distance him or herself from guilty feelings about the parent-murder he thinks he has committed, and partly from the echo effect that re-actualizes a wound that has been poorly elaborated or unelaborated in the adult. The narcissistic dimension is prevalent here.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 4, 717-731.
After reviewing the different axes of filiation according to J. Guyotat, with which the narrative axis may be associated (B. Golse, M. R. Moro), and relocating the issue of psychical bisexuality with regard to the precursors of sexual differentiation, this article will offer some reflections and clinical illustrations of adolescents’ aggression as it relates to identity and narrative filiation on the one hand, and the psychical bisexuality of adoptive parents on the other.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 4, 705-716.
Using the concept of the family romance we explore the work of rewriting memory and reconciling affects, particularly in the adopted adolescent, with or without pathology, which enables him or her to move towards a coherent identity. This concept allows us to illustrate how the adoption situation can color the whole adolescent process, without changing the nature of it.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 4, 695-703.