Page - 19 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

The body ego 19 conquered the fashion world; girls got engaged quite young, married and quickly became pregnant. With the possible exception of Elvis Presley’s hysterical fans, there were no protests. Young men dressed like their fathers and aspired to emu- late their successful careers. Only in the 1960s did a broad movement emerge from what had originally been a student counterculture – the hippies. This subculture propounded a new lifestyle: instead of success and perseverance, love and communally experienced music were the new ideals. Music festivals such as the legendary Woodstock Festival were crystallizing events. Inspired by The Beatles, male adolescents wore their hair longer, causing controversy with parents and teachers. Today, we might have dif- ficulty imagining the eruptive force of long hair, especially since it was often not much longer than before – and yet it still elicited vehement reactions. Girls tended to wear mini - or maxi -dresses, with their hair free (Miles 2005). The previously rigorous sartorial distinction between the sexes was dissolved: inspired by Indian clothes, young people wore batik fabrics, symbolizing a break in gender roles. Tat- toos, piercings and blackwork tattoos were popular. The “Jesus sandal”, a healthy form of footwear, was the opposite pole to the preceding bourgeois tweed jackets, dirndls and loden look (in German -speaking countries) of youth culture. The core of the hippie period was between 1965 and 1971. In the 1980s, the hippie movement segued to alternative movements such as punks and the “no -future” movement, but before (and after) this, men and women alike often wore long hair and jewelry. “Free love” and free drug consumption became widespread, with The Beatles’ song “All You Need is Love” embodying the hippies’ motto. Today as well, adolescent fashions often trigger conflicts with parents, leading to denial and opprobrium. Why is the body of such importance as a locus for provocation? Especially during this period of fundamental physical change, the body is most intimately linked to the ego. “The ego is always a body ego,” writes Freud (1923, GW XIII, 253). Since all dimensions from the relatively peaceful latency period are in flux, the adolescent now finds a kind of refuge in his body – even though it is also a source of insecuri- ties and fears as it rapidly changes. Even if the adolescent suddenly knows nothing about himself – about his values, his desires, his position within the family – at least (he believes) he can control his own body. Just as the infant derives direct reinforce- ment from his corporal sensations and the experience of being held, the adolescent uses his body to evoke massive reactions from his parents and other adults. Hot- pants revealing everything but a girl’s posterior, or bushy hair under a headband, become the object both of commentary and power struggles: the question of who should control the adolescent’s body becomes a controversy between adolescent and parents, one which I describe more closely in Chapter 3. Parents, who have until now guaranteed the survival of their children through devotion and loving care, now are meant to feel a border: “I control my own body!”. This constitutes a painful rejection and a new positioning of the parents vis -à -vis their adolescent children, as responsibility is transferred to the children step by step. If physical changes were at the center of this chapter, in Chapter 2 we will examine the emotional responses to them and psychosexual effects.