Commenting on J. Lacan as a reader of Freud, the author notes that both saw the importance of the Ideal Self during the period they called « puberty ». They use this term in a way that is devoid of biologism, in place of our modern one of « adolescence ». In psychosis, it is an avatar of this process that J. Lacan denounces in the onset of psychosis, namely the impossibility for the subject to introject the Ideal Self which has been projected.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 2, 305-308.
Based on a clinical case, we will examine the implications of the adolescent processes in the onset of paranoid psychosis. This reflection is based on the Lacanian concept of psychosis as it relates to the precise process of onset. More specifically, the temporality of onset of this case of psychosis can be better understood by examining its diachronic and/or synchronic temporal determinations.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 2, 289-304
In psychoanalysis, the distinction between truth and knowledge has implications beyond the theoretical sphere. It is also essential in the clinical context. The adolescent crisis, as Lacan following in Freud’s footsteps suggests, involves « questioning truth as though it were knowledge ». This sort of questioning allows a young person at an impasse to use knowledge in order to produce a new formalization.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 2, 279-287.
How can an adolescent authorize him or herself to have a sexual relationship? Access to the jouissance of the body follows the path of the letter in order for desire to emerge. The phallic function becomes the vector, via the possibility for a subject to use the Name-of-the-Father in order to “take the leap” of performing the sexual act. How can the success or failure of this process be approached in the treatment of adolescents? The ways of knowing how to deal with castration are specific yet all refer back to the universal of the father as name (Name-of-the-Father).
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 2, 271-278.
Lacan’s theory involves the critique of psychogenetic approaches to the Oedipus complex. Lacan’s focus on the Father and castration further accentuates Freud’s favoring of a phylogenetic approach. Adolescence is a time of disappointment of Oedipal aspirations, when it turns out that genitality does not provide a relationship to the Other. This illustrates the lesser importance for Lacan of the Oedipus complex as a means to analyze adolescent processes.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 2, 261-270.
Returning with D. W. Winnicott and J. Lacan to the question of adolescence as a social as well as subjective phenomenon, this paper seeks to identify what is at stake during this period, namely a new articulation of jouissance and the body based on the three figures of “the paternal metaphor”, that is to say from the Oedipal scenario.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 2,251-260.
We explore ways in which J. Lacan could be considered a theoretician of pubertal development without being aware of it, analogous to the way Freud examined the infantile period though analysis of young women. Through a paradigm change, of which J. Lacan was unaware, between his Seminar, Book V which posits the existence of an Other of the Other and The Seminar, Book VI where is no more Other of the Other, our exploration develops the argument made in J-A Miller’s lecture in 2013: “The Other Without the Other”.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 2, 239-250.
How can we approach the relationship between the works of J. Lacan and the treatment of adolescents when the actual topic of adolescence seems to be absent from J. Lacan’s work? It can be argued that J. Lacan, by relying on the notion of “structure” rather than that of “development”, substitutes questions about the body, and in particular about puberty and pubertal development, and uses instead a language that specifies effects of pubertal development without designating them as such.
Adolescence, 2016, 34, 2, 233-238.