Acting in adolescence: Symptom or Developmental transition?

TitleActing in adolescence: Symptom or Developmental transition?
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2014
AuthorsQuagelli L, Balottin L
JournalInterdisciplinary Journal of Family Studies
Volume19
Issue2
Pagination70-82
Date Published12/2014
PublisherPadova University Press
Place PublishedPadova, IT
ISSN Number2282-2011
Keywordsacting, adolescents, day hospital., institution, psychoanalitic psychoterapy
Abstract

Adolescence is par excellence a stage in life characterized by the tendency towards acts, which inludes both pathological aspects and common declinations of evolution: subjectivation during adolescence entails fluid articulation between external and internal reality.
From Freud’s thoughts to Winnicott’s, along with other psychoanalysts who study institutions, acts finds their place at the crossroads between the internal and external. According to an interpretation that is no longer solely intrapsychic, but also relational, the response given by the object (therapist or institution) acquires the value of becoming a repetition or elaboration process to the patient’s communication, though primitive and acted out.
It is therefore essential for professionals and institutions dealing with adolescents, especially with those who have psychopathologies, to work on the meaning of acts, thus creating a well suited relational space which the adolescents can use during their development.

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