Período de transtornos somatopsíquicos inéditos, a adolescência repõe em questão os marcos identitários e identificatórios. A metáfora de Anzieu - o Eu-pele - parece-nos fecunda para pensar a adolescência em termos de muda: mudar de pele. O investimento dos limites é especialmente solicitado para conter essas transformações. Este artigo propõe uma reflexão acerca dos conteúdos intrapsíquicos, objetais e sociais que favorecem a muda adolescente.
Background
Bullying, the most prevalent form of abuse among adolescents, is associated with emotional and behavioural problems as well as psychiatric morbidity. Moreover, it has been shown that adolescents with previous mental health problems are at increased risk of being bullied and that the psychopathological repercussions of bullying are greatest among them. However, little is known about the experience of bullying in adolescents receiving treatment from mental health services. The aim of this study was to explore the subjective experience of bullying in adolescents receiving mental health care.
Methods
The study was developed in the context of a French multicentre research program and employed an exploratory phenomenological approach. A purposeful sampling strategy was used to select adolescents who had experienced bullying (according to the Olweus criteria) and who were able to relate their experiences clearly. In-depth, semistructured interviews with participants were conducted; written transcriptions of these interviews were analysed using thematic analysis.
Results
Twenty-one adolescents (age range: 12–17 years; 13 girls) participated in the study. The analysis indicated a three-axis structure: (1) negative emotions and violent feelings, describing adolescents’ fear, sadness, aggression against themselves, and generalized mistrust; (2) isolation and loneliness, underlining the need to take refuge within oneself and the experiences of rejection, helplessness, and secret-keeping; and (3) self and identity repercussions, including experiences of shame and lowered self-esteem, identity questions, and a vision of bullying as a life experience.
Conclusions
The results of this study may have practical implications for clinicians: (1) a situation of bullying should be sought when an adolescent is seen for unexplained externalized behavioural misconduct; (2) low levels of emotional expression in a bullied adolescent may warn about associated self-harm; (3) a bullied adolescent’s tendency to hide this situation from his or her parents may reflect underlying family-related vulnerability; and (4) the phenomenological analysis showed potential particularities in the assumptive world of these adolescents and suggested that relationality may play a crucial role in their experiences. These results suggest incentives to design specific individual and group therapeutic interventions for bullied adolescents with significant levels of social withdrawal, including family support. Additional research is necessary to improve our understanding of the psychopathological and intersubjective aspects of bullying in adolescents.
Résumé Problème majeur de santé publique, les tentatives de suicide des adolescents appellent une mise en sens. Il nous semble que le geste suicidaire manifeste une voie de décharge pulsionnelle retournée contre soi tout en préservant l’objet et peut être compris comme une défense violente instinctuelle. Le courant sexuel instinctuel pubertaire insuffisamment contenu se voit excessivement infiltré par des motions infantiles parenticides et incestueuses non intégrées, en écho à des motions infanticides assignées aux figures parentales, ce qui est susceptible de brouiller les repères générationnels. Ainsi, le geste suicidaire nous semble signer momentanément un échec d’élaboration du traitement de la perte et du conflit œdipien réactualisé à l’adolescence mais nous semble aussi signer une tentative de redémarrage du processus de subjectivation. Notre propos s’étaye sur des extraits d’entretiens cliniques d’une adolescente de 16 ans, après son passage aux urgences à la suite d’un geste suicidaire par ingestion médicamenteuse et sur une comparaison de deux séquences de réponses au T.A.T., peu après le geste suicidaire et un an plus tard.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.