Page - 145 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

The testing of limits, the measuring of one’s own and others’ possibilities, is a nor- mal part of adolescent behavior. Psychoanalysis understands this behavior as one facet of self -investigation and experimentation towards answering the question “Who am I?” However, such exploration becomes problematic when the border to antisocial and self -destructive behavior is crossed. Adolescents often are not aware where to delineate the border to extreme and abusive behavior (Aichhorn 1925), whether in the form of violence, alcohol and drugs, promiscuity, food or computer games. We must emphasize that psychoanalysis seeks to understand each individual in her particular life situation and biography. Only when we attempt to understand each unique inner world can an adolescent be helped to find his way back to nor- mality (with its full spectrum). Adolescent behavior must always be understood as unconscious communication – even when the adolescent has no idea what lies behind his alarmingly spontaneous actions. The failure to understand one’s own drives threatens and confuses both adolescent and parent. Indeed, when appre- hended shoplifting or involved in a fight, the adolescent might well say, “I don’t know what made me do it”. The major difficulty with this kind of “acting out”, when it crosses significant borders, is that it expresses an inner pain that is inex- tricably bound up with outer contingencies. This is also complicated by the fact that adolescents often wish both to be understood and misunderstood; at the same time, parents often have the impression that the help they offer is ineffective or inappropriate – whatever they try is wrong. It is not always easy to establish where and when the limits of parental (or soci- etal tolerance) have been reached. A situation becomes problematic when mas- sive antisocial and self -destructive behavior gets out of control, and adolescents cannot adequately discern where they already have overstepped limits regarding violence, alcohol and drugs, sexuality, food or computer games, often making light of their own behavior. For parents and teachers, one appropriate response to transgressive behavior is the twofold strategy of taking the behavior seriously but not over -dramatizing it (but by no means ignoring it). Certain behaviors could be the first step in a delinquent “career”, or simply be a communication meant to 6 Lost by the wayside – overstepping limits