Doing psychotherapy as a teenager in Paris 9

Adolescence is a transition period between childhood and adulthood. During this period, adolescents try to answer the existential question: “ Who am I?” ". In wanting to achieve autonomy and independence, corresponding to adulthood, adolescents will have to go through a certain number of stages essential to development.

Adolescence corresponds to a period of significant identity changes. Indeed, important transformations take place during this phase such as physical changes, the beginnings of sexual life, social and cognitive transformations. All these modifications lead the teenager in Paris as throughout the world to question himself. The teenager will have to reclaim his body, find himself and find himself again.

Adolescence is a stage of life that each individual will experience, a stage which takes them from the status of a child to that of an adult, and these changes can be more or less well supported depending on the individual. Faced with this disarray into which those who find themselves in this tipping point can be plunged, psychotherapy with a psychoanalyst can help the adolescent to find a way out that suits him.

Upheavals during adolescence.

The first visible signs in adolescence are bodily changes. The body transforms from a child's body to an adult's body. These sudden changes can be confusing for the adolescent. He will have to get to know his new body, accept it, while being confronted with society's standards. It is during this period that many adolescent girls, in particular, will find themselves “too fat”, “too small”... It may be difficult for the adolescent to accept his body as it has become.

This is also the period when adolescents will be able, physiologically speaking, to have children and have a sexual life. The child will become an adult, and this transition may be difficult to navigate. More precisely, this impulse explosion confronts the adolescent with this human difficulty, which consists of finding a way out between the demands of his sexual impulses and those of society.

During this period of life, all the self-confidence acquired is called into question, the adolescent may then withdraw into himself, lose self-confidence, or even fall into depression. Risks of anorexia, bulimia, taking drugs or even suicidal thoughts can appear during this period of life.

Adolescence also undermines ties with loved ones, particularly parents. Communication can be broken, unbalanced. It will then be important to re-establish close ties between parents and the adolescent.

Traduit du français par Olajumoke Balogun

All these upheavals will lead to questions about identity. The adolescent must deal with this new body and this new identity. To do this, he will have to find himself and this can be difficult for some. Identity, knowing and accepting oneself, is the basis of psychological balance. If the adolescent has difficulty finding his own identity, psychotherapy with a psychoanalyst or psychoanalysis can allow him to assess himself and literally find his style.

What psychotherapy can do for adolescents.

Thus, adolescence is a turbulent period of life. Identity questions are frequent and do not always find answers. The psychoanalyst will allow the adolescent to talk about what is happening in his body, to express his difficulties, and in doing so, create a future that is not only possible but pleasant for him.

He will thus be able to build a way of life that allows him to be an adult, to assume his responsibilities in Paris as everywhere else.

It is clear that many people who call themselves adults today only use the term “adult” in the guise in which they represent themselves. Many adults today are ultimately grown-up children who hide behind what they call their constraints. We can group together these responsibilities which consist of paying bills or working (we are talking about survival here, not life) but it is not yet a question of assuming this responsibility specific to the speaking being, this particularly difficult responsibility to support which consists of assuming one's desire, of taking care of it.

How can an adolescent learn to support his desire if he notices that the adults who are closest to him do not themselves assume an intimate relationship with their desire?

Adolescence is therefore a difficult period, both for the adolescent himself and those around him. It will revive certain things among parents in particular, who may thus experience their child's adolescence with difficulty. It is also not uncommon to see that as soon as a teenager begins to get better with his psychotherapy, it is one of his loved ones who starts to be criticised. It is therefore important that the psychoanalyst (whether a psychologist or psychiatrist training) can be attentive to these family movements so that he can offer his help if necessary. A family consultation is not necessary because it does not allow each member of the family to express themselves in complete privacy, the only possible way to bring about subjectivity is to be open. It is up to the psychoanalyst to make himself available to family members in order to offer a space of freedom and ventilation where a well-spoken word can make its way.

Thanks to psychotherapy with a psychoanalyst , the adolescent will be able to find solid support thanks to which he can feel understood, listened to and taken into account. It will offer him a space free from any judgement in which he can speak his most intimate things and thus reveal himself to himself.

Doing psychotherapy as a teenager in Paris

M.H.

Traduit du français par Olajumoke Balogun