With reference to the Freudian concept of Hilflosigkeit, the author connects studies of the evolution of the newborn’s psychic life with the evolution of psychic life in adolescence. Taking into consideration the new sensory experience of the pubertaire, the author will use as an example the case of an adolescent with borderline functioning.
Adolescence, 2025, 43, 1, 141-159.
This article examines questions raised by creative adolescents’ exploration of binarity in their gender identity, by bringing psychoanalysis into a dialogue with trans-identity issues, queer studies, and feminist theories. Moreover, it shows that we should be wary of the current trend towards psychic normativity and must let go of our own knowledge in order to better listen to what transgender and non-binary adolescents are telling us.
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 301-310.
In this article, the authors and coordinators of the Binary/Non-Binary issue examine the questions raised by adolescent exploration of gender-identity and non-binarity from three angles: through the prism of the patients, that of their parents, and that of the caregivers who encounter them. In doing this, a Freudian approach leads them towards a subversive creativity rather than towards a set of reactionary dogmas.
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 293-300.
N. Enkelaar interviews M. Stora, specialist of virtual worlds, about the role social networks in identity construction, using as a starting point the book Réseaux (a)sociaux, published in 2021. This leads to a dialogue about the ideals conveyed by these networks, their paradoxes and the way in which they encounter adolescent issues. Social networks serve as both a support and a prison for the adolescent in the making, and their many facets are explored here.
Adolescence, 2022, 40, 2, 259-269.
This article, as an extension of D. W. Winnicott’s theory of the environment, analyzes in our hypermodernity the opposition between individual and collective expressions of the antisocial tendency, the two central aspects of which are busyness and the destruction of nature. We will thus show how the process of adolescent subjectivation requires one to survive a lost planet by creating free planets. An account of a clinical case will illustrate our ideas.
Adolescence, 2021, 39, 1, 187-198.
Both the quest for meaning and creativity are amplified in adolescence. If meaning is a quest, what path leads to it? Is creativity a way to attain it? Should access to meaning be legitimately considered an essential aim of therapy (defined as a technique for establishing or restoring the normality)? If so, is it reasonable to conceive of creativity as a discipline that is essential for mobilizing adolescents and their caregivers?
Adolescence, 2020, 38, 2, 405-421.
In this article, the author uses Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves to explore the place of sensoriality in adolescence. By putting into perspective the particular qualities of Virgina Woolf’s writing, which has been characterized as sensorial, the article will try to shed light on the links between sensoriality, continuity of being, and the redeployments of identification and subjectivation of loss in adolescence, especially as seen in the relations between the protagonists and the key character of Perceval.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 3, 651-661.
This article will study disgust expressed by the adolescent girl as an expression of creative subjective movements. We will study its evolution in the therapeutic process. Disgust will be a way of understanding the interweaving of drives in this young girl. Disgust will be examined from the perspective of its archaic and genitalized links.
Adolescence, 2015, 33, 2, 367-381.
Slam is a new poetic art form involving performance that has been taken up by young people. This poetry-performance responds to the need for narcissistic support and the conquest of new spaces in adolescence, when the field of language is invested as a breaking away from the mother tongue and the normative tongue. It enables young people to confront otherness by sublimating their aggressive drives through the common esthetic object they identify with and in which they exercise their creativity.
Adolescence, 2014, 32, 4, 771-786.
The context of the process of adolescence is paradox. The subject is confronted in a particularly intense way with the effects of dependence and the requirement of autonomy. This tension causes a resurgence of emotions that the subject must deal with, and the quest for sensation may be one way of coping. The reflective consciousness will be crucial in shielding the subject from the consequences of a destructive polarization.
Adolescence, 2014, 32, 4, 695-703.