The author approaches different experiences of confinement in adolescence by way of a clinical situation and several operas. He examines the unique path of Bérangère, sequestered by her mother, and of Pamina, captive of the Queen of Night; also of Siegfried, prisoner of Mime and Tannhäuser and detained by the goddess Venus. These four situations are an invitation to different variations of the reordering of imagos that precedes the investment of substitute objects.
Adolescent crisis as it is manifested today in the poor suburbs is often attributed to an “ illness of ideality ”. The author shows that it is not so much a lack as an excess of material ideals that prevents the adolescent from adhering to the universal values that would facilitate his integration. To show how evolution is possible, he analyses the film La promesse (“ The Promise ”), by the Dardenne brothers, wherein one can follow step by step this evolution in the process of conversion in the widest sense and analyze the important role played by reference to the maternal imago.
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