The therapeutic group in adolescence: A process of intersubjectivation

This article analyses group processes in adolescence through therapeutic group interventions. The authors propose to analyse the group aspect, cross-identifications and projective identifications of the adolescent subjectivation process. In which ways does the adolescent subjectivation process need to go through a process of intersubjectivation? This involves a consideration of observable intersubjectivity in a therapeutic group with troubled adolescents. After redefining the notion of subjectivation process and its various manifestations in adolescent psychopathology, the authors further analyse the complex implications of this notion, from the point of view of object cathexes and of links to others. The task is to establish a metapsychology of links to introduce therapeutic psychoanalytic groups into psychic dynamics: in particular, the authors discuss the methodology of theatre-mediated therapeutic psychoanalytic groups, from which the clinical vignette discussed is taken. A case study of a group of adolescents discovers the haphazardness of the link to the other, as a cornerstone towards reinitializing the process of subjectivation that has been hindered in members of the group, and as a way of resuming self-reflectiveness and the reimagining of the self.