Abstract
This paper examines adolescence from the perspective of initiation, in order to take stock of Lacan’s contribution. Lacan did not often use the terms ‘adolescence’ and ‘puberty’. His teaching did however ascribe an important place to this period of youth, when one becomes a man or a woman, expecting from Others knowledge providing the key to adulthood. Based on his comments on the ancient Mystery cults and tribal rites described by Bettelheim, we will see that from Lacan’s work emerges the argument that there is no initiation. This is what constitutes the disarming experience of adolescence, on two different registers. There is no knowledge explaining how to be a man or a woman, just as there is no science of enjoyment. Instead, there is only the reminder, fraught with danger for the subject, of one’s castration.
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