[Hysterical symptomatology in adolescents. Reflections on clinical cases]

The body mediates the development of the personality before the acquisition of language allows a more complex structural level to be reached. Due to the remodelling process undergone by the personality during the course of adolescence, it easier to fluctuate between more evolved levels and others of a regressive type in which the body is again placed in the prime position as a means of expression and communication. In this study attention was focused on a few cases of hysterical syndrome in adolescents in whom inappropriate behaviour related to schooling or existential aspects could be traced back to a lack of tolerance towards their aggressivity on behalf of the environment in which they lived. Given the impossibility of expressing their aggression externally, despite the fact these episodes lacked control, and of directing it towards modes of behaviour more suited to self-affirmation, there followed a regression towards symptoms of somatic conversion; the adolescent's mental health is at risk since the readier social acceptance of the hysterical syndrome encourages its organisation into a constant feature rather than being merely an attempt to defend a lifestyle which is not yet consolidated and still open to non-pathological adaptation solutions.