The adolescent passage is paradoxical. On the one hand, the young person positions himself as a subject by and for the rupture with the domestic cultural universe ; on the other hand, he will often return to repressed cultural elements of the preceding generation in order to construct his future. This is a sharp and very visible paradox when we are dealing with contexts of migration, but it is inherent to every adolescent process, whether « migrant » or « native ». This article uses C. Lévi-Strauss’ notion of « mythopoetic language » to explore the translations of this paradox in adolescents’ particular way of modeling language and of speaking.
Spitting is a frequent behavior in adolescence, especially in boys, and it first appears as sign of virility showing itself. But here we will hypothesize that an incompatibility with speech, speech wherein subjectivity is implicated in an « unsaid » way, is found in this very behavior which leads the subject to abandon appearances and show, in order to venture further into speaking that supports seduction and the love relationship as a new position in the world.
This article points out the place of verbal communication, interpretation and the use of the transference in the encounter with adolescents, emphasising the subtle and continuously variable dosage which has to be established between these three parameters if one wishes to promote a living and fruitful dialogue.
The subject of the unconscious and the collective maintain consubstantial relations. They are like inside and outside for one another. The passage from to the other is accomplished as if over a Mœbius strip where inside and outside are indistinguishable. If the subject of the unconscious is the effect of the laws of language, this is not without being colored by collective productions and their institutional set-ups which, through a certain collective arrangement of speech and utterances, dig canals and confer upon it specific modes of expression. The tale and the dream, as they may refer to each other and unfold in a singular speech, aim to be the privileged means of grasping this articulation. An illustration of this is given here using a clinical research encounter, in the context of oral tradition, with an eleven year-old girl, recounting the marks of a fate for signs of a dreamed destiny.
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