Adolescence et subjectivation. Une déconstruction de l'intersubjectivité ?

Abstract

The work of subjectivity characterises adolescence. This process of subjectivation, the new capacity of the person to learn about his/her personal functioning, finds its roots in the intersubjectivity of childhood. However, the latter itself is found in the primary link in which, the “Me not me” differentiation remains imprecise. If the mother and child have to rid themselves of this “trans-subjectivity” through little games of failings and surprise, the adolescent has to free himself from the secondary intersubjectivity in order to reach the feeling of subjectivity. The nature of this “work of subjectivation” has profoundly changed. Previously, the adolescent had to create a minimal space between this sentiment of “me” and his sentimental attachments (Oedipal bonds and affiliation bonds). The adolescent, today, is incited by the surrounding social individualism that promotes a deconstruction of all forms of intersubjectivity to assert himself in solipsist subjectivity, true fantasy of the modern subject. The symptomatic manifestations, notably the multiple actions taken by the adolescent are analysed as a trace of this new requirement.