This article presents a theoretical framework for thinking about seemingly psychotic manifestations in adolescence. Between the archaic and the actual, the paradigm of pubertary psychosis frees itself from hasty references to the risk of schizophrenia and gives new value to the notion of potentiality as a process. Pubertary psychosis turns out to have an eminently borderline character and its symptoms necessitate ways of treatment that cover the spectrum of a work of the negative that is necessary but uncertain.
This article focuses on violent acts in the adolescent hospitalized in psychiatry, using a clinical case to discuss, on the one hand, how through the violent act and lack of symbolization, the adolescent will come to figure a pubertary impasse, inviting a hypothesis of pubertary psychosis; and on the other hand, how the clinician can open up a therapeutic perspective when faced with ruptures of the symbolic process that drive the adolescent to enact violence.
Adolescence, 2019, 37, 2, 403-422.
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