[Adolescence. The problem of identity and development of the self]

This is a contribution to the description of the birth and development of the feeling of identity, such as organized by the genesis of the authentic self, which in sociology is called the value system of young people. My clinical experience suggests that this development, which is spread over two decades, goes through two phases: formation of basic identity; formation of sexual identity. They are integrated into the total self-identity at the end of adolescence. The basic identity organizes the intra-psychic structuration by the internalization of the super ego, after the oedipal phase. I use the term Ego-identity to define this phase of global functioning. The constitution of the authentic self is evidence of this integration.