Confinement in the Adolescent

This paper deals with the various mechanisms leading adolescents to psychological confinement. Confinement is different from isolation, inasmuch as it implies a disavowal of the other’s mirroring ability. Because of the conflict between narcissism and object relation and because of the way puberty upsets early dependence on infantile objects, psychological confinement appears under the guise of a fetishistic relation. The presentation of a few clinical cases will allow us to set down some guidelines enabling adolescents to be free of confinement, even though, most of the time, these young patients are not asking us for anything.