Page - 4 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

There is no period – aside from the time in the womb – when the body alters as much as in puberty. Bodily changes are subject neither to a person’s will nor their control, erupting and eliciting fiery emotions in the adolescent. Later, massive physical changes occur during pregnancy and aging, significantly affecting our emotional state, sense of identity and fears. Freud emphasizes that we cannot directly rule our bodies and that a person cannot experience objective biologi- cal gender identity; instead, we “libidinally cathect” our bodies from some inner source, consciously and unconsciously, linking a given drive energy to our body or some part of it. This in turn determines whether a person views his body as native or alien to him or as a mere mechanism – and whether he loves or hates his body in whole or in part. Each spurt of growth or change through growth or illness alters this emotional attitude toward the body. For instance, if a tooth or toe causes pain, a special contingent of attention and devotion is mobilized: the person then thinks only of this tooth or toe – for a given time, it constitutes the center of their emotional life. During the relatively stable phase of latency, focus is on increasing body skills and mobility, with physical skills, sports and movement in competition with peers constituting important and pleasurable outlets. Now, without prior warning and without the child’s participation, the body they have grown so familiar with under- goes a fundamental change, with no definite end in sight. This physical growth often already occurs at the end of latency, with the attendant emotional impact only following one or two years later: for instance, girls today often experience their first menstruation at the age of ten, without any mental and psychic readiness for motherhood. The great psychic task of adolescence consists of the adolescent finding his own place in the world and accomplishing the transition from his fam- ily to the greater world of adults. We will first describe the physiological changes of puberty, and then the adolescent’s emotional and mental answer to them. How massive these changes are – changes to be mastered within a short period of time – is indicated by the difference in physical appearance between 12 and 20 years of age. Some people change so drastically that they are virtually unrec- ognizable: out of a little girl emerges a sexually attractive young woman, or out of a little boy a tall, powerful man. Within a few years, adolescents must brace 1 The body ego