[Troubling femininity. On the topic of adolescence]

Adolescence is of cardinal importance for gender identity, a period of self-differentiation in which sexual identity is finally and fully established. The author proceeds from a somato-psychic relation model taking shape between mother and daughter at birth and based on unconscious projections on the part of the mother. The model centres around the contrast between the body as envelope and as (empty) cavity. In the course of adolescence, in which femininity, sexuality and motherhood are supposed to manifest themselves and unite in the female body, girls are faced with the difficult task of relinquishing the idea of their body as a cavity and identifying with the idea of physical containment. With reference to the case of a bulimic adolescent and more general remarks on anorexia, the author traces the difficulties encountered on the arduous path to the appropriation of femininity, which, if strayed from, can lead to the brink of death.