Current transformations of sexed subjectivities confront psychoanalytic theory and practice with the inadequacy of certain canonical categories for understanding the dissidences of sexuality. Trans identies, trans sexualities, tranvestitisms, transgenders, fluid and non-binary subjectivities in contemporary adolescences, all give rise to a crisis in patriarchal narratives and call out the cis-hetero-normative imagination of psychoanalysis.
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 3421-434.
Today, the adolescent’s search for identity meets with new suggestions in terms of identification. By disentangling the issue of gender from that of sex, gender theories open up new perspectives for individual affirmation, thus opening up “man/woman” and “homosexual/heterosexual” binarities to other variations. The possibility of “choosing your gender” thus encounters the adolescent demand for the “right to self-determination”.
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 353-365.
Nowadays, the metamorphoses of Éros are causing us to rethink the thesis according to which sexual binarism is the key to the order of the symbolic. The corpus of psychoanalysis and even more so the practice of psychoanalysis have been rocked by this. How can we keep analytical listening and intervention alive, and maintain the connection between analysis and what is happening in the field of culture? Could a dialogue with anthropology help with this?
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 339-351.
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.
François Richard’s interest in the treatment of adolescents and borderline states, on the one hand, and the cultural and psychosocial evolution, on the other, are at the center of his extremely rich new work, in which he brings these two dimensions together. The author will attempt to show a link between the increase of borderline pathologies and the evolution of civilization’s discontent, which is associated with a pervertization of the superego (contradictory double bind of liberation and puritanism).
Adolescence, 2022, 40, 1, 205-212.
Using two very different clinical cases, this article offers an anthropological exploration of contemporary conceptions of youth. These conceptions are linked to the opening up of places of confinement and to the promotion of individual autonomy. They are unevenly distributed according to social milieu and gender. Faced with threats to the environment, the tendency of individual capacities to double down on the consumption of resources and on the culture/nature dualism is becoming a problem.
Adolescence, 2021, 39, 1, 199-208.
Over the last few years, more and more young people have called into question the well-marked boundaries of gender, the couple and sexuality: bisexual or pansexual, gender-neutral or –fluid, transgender, they refuse labels, identity fixations, and demand the right to invent themselves completely, to shatter the boundaries that distinguish heterosexuality and homosexuality, male and female, boy and girl.
Adolescence, 2020, 38, 2, 447-462.
Statistical studies raise the question of gender differences in the juvenile justice system. Data concerning the causes, judicial procedures, and nationalities of minors in detention show differences between the way males and females are treated, giving a more complete picture of the striking impact of multiple instances of abuse on the delinquency of girls under the age of eighteen.
Adolescence, 2018, 36, 1, 23-34.
A few remarks about terminology (sex, gender, identity) will be followed by a brief review of gender identity construction up till adolescence. The passage from a sort of childhood androgyny to the fullness of sex-specific identity sometimes occurs with some common difficulties; this is also the moment when the possibility of accessing complete and fertile sexuality will confirm or develop sexual orientation. Outside of any problem of sexual development, some adolescents (transsexual) refuse the sex they were born with, which is their biological sex, and request hormone-surgical transformation. Some adolescents have a problem of gender identity related to a problem of sexual development. A « transgender » movement has arisen in our culture, calling gender into question and going so far as to refusing all sexual distinction; this raises questions which are not medical but societal.
Adolescence, 2014, 32, 1, 165-179.