The author proposes that we look at the origin of the phobic symptom before it is formed – in other words, at anxiety. The notion of anxiety hysteria is revisited and studied in its relation to anxiety neurosis. The case of a 14-year-old adolescent boy illustrates the moment when anxiety neurosis does not find resolution in phobia, and the author details the reasons why in this case leads to a hypochondriac solution instead.
Adolescence, 2026, 44, 2, 335-345.
The teenager is extremely sensitive to his image. This one is dreaded as much as invested with strength and fascination. In this article, we present an observation that illustrates the complex and ambivalent perceptions of a body full of diverse troubles. A body which seems to be the Pandora’s box of all the fears arisen from the childhood and from the adolescence, and a body-shop window, a narcissistic facade by the glance of the other one, but at the same time being afraid that this glance sees inside herself, its intimacy, its thoughts, its fears, where from this frequent paranoid aspect in the adolescence.
revue Adolescence, 2011, T. 29 n°4, pp. 779-785.