Page - 138 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

138 The search for the self – identity preferred by girls and their mother, makes Lari sob for Carl and for herself. Some of her friends already have a boyfriend and she does not, making her feel excluded. Her tears also have a liberating, purifying quality. Seeking to free herself from her intense love she has for her father, she tries to convince herself that she has never been loved. Her longing for death is manifested when she remarks that she might have to die at a young age; then, her idol becomes her spiritual consoler and imag- inary friend. Lari speaks with Jimmy like a lonely young child with an imaginary play comrade meant to console and encourage her. We can understand this as an inner dialogue, a part of Lari that is constructive and optimistic, encouraging and consoling herself. Lari is in the middle of a process of self -discovery and wishes to seek her own path in life. She shifts seamlessly from the imaginary to the real world. She wants to buy a calendar with pictures of James Dean, to possess him. The fact that James Dean is doubly unattainable – far away in the USA and dead in a motorcycle accident – makes it easier for her to adore him. 5.5 Homoerotic attraction Women can see their best female friend as an emotional substitute for the mother; separation from the mother is thus made easier. Lari writes in her diary: Last week I was with Petra in Mittersill!! It was great. Petra told about Ire- land. I like Petra soooo much. She is not only incredibly pretty, but also funny, sweet and understanding. I hope she likes me just as much . . . Lari admires, idealizes and respects her best friend Petra – in her description, there is a similarity to boys she has a crush on. Several days later, she writes: Too bad Petra didn’t come with us, but when we left she was still at the hair- dresser’s. She has a perm now (new) and looks great. She is getting prettier and prettier. I feel like the prince in “Beauty and the Beast”. (Lari as quoted by Erhard 1998, 84) Lari realizes the erotic tenor of this idealization: she compares herself to the Prince in “Beauty and the Beast”, who is a changeling. Helene Deutsch contended that the strong “bisexual” phase shortly before adolescence is less suppressed in girls than in boys (because boys are ashamed of their “femininity”, as she believed) (Deutsch quoted in Blos 1962, 99). Two months later, Lari has distanced herself emotionally from Petra, as she writes: I like the company of the other kids at boarding school much, much better than Petra’s. I’m from another kind of family and grew up with athletes: I don’t belong to her kind (that sounds stupid, but it’s true!). Sometimes Petra seems so affected and so on, I don’t suit her really . . . (Lari quoted in Erhard)