This article discusses the idea that the concept of responsibility for Self has for several generations been a dominant representation of the relationship between the individual and the socius. One of the principle hypotheses put forward by the author is that the (relative) irresponsibility of the Self is associated with the extent of its delegation of its protection of itself to the state. These modifications would then echo the socio-economic transformations and cross over, as we will show, into the field of the human sciences. They manifest themselves, as far as psychoanalysis is concerned, in an evolution of the complaint and the greater emphasis on « narcissistic » disorders. It is still uncertain whether these transformations have a consistent affect on adolescent behavior beyond the role it seems to have regularly played : that of a social integrator, a ferry from one generation to the next.
Regularly, the literature concerned with delinquency during adolescence convenes the failure of the paternal authority as explication of transgressions of the social link. These are the hangovers of a theoretical tradition which has shown many times the effects of oedipal triangulation, paradigmatic of emotional and social relationships. Though, a part of clinic is now showing us the importance of the dynamics of exchange subjected to an order of parity, we can not overlook. Underlain by narcissism, it takes precedence over genealogy and gives to distances and proximities an assured function ; the one which will guarantee adolescent reciprocity and integrity, in fouding otherwise his values.
Adolescence, 2011, T. 29 n°1, pp. 293-304.
Revue semestrielle de psychanalyse, psychopathologie et sciences humaines, indexée AERES au listing PsycINFO publiée avec le concours du Centre National du Livre et de l’Université de Paris Diderot Paris 7