Adolescence in transition – critical moments for adolescents in the transition to adulthood in different cultural contexts.
In a multicultural perspective different appearances of adolescence are presented and discussed: natives, migrants, refugees, prisoners, digital addicts etc.
Dr. Patrick P. Haemmerle | Praxis Pérolles | Switzerland
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Dr. Patrick P. Haemmerle | Praxis Pérolles | Switzerland
Objectives : Adolescence is transition « par excellence ». This multi-cultural symposium intends to show the variety of patterns by which adolescents in different cultures and contexts live in this crucial period of their life, with all the immanent risks and opportunities. We should learn that a normative and rigid approach is neither adequate nor helpful for our clinical work.
Methods: The five contributions will present five respectively different variations of adolescence, seen as the crucial stage of transition into adulthood. Our contributions will be based on a psychoanalytical (adolescence as “second chance”) and a sociocultural (each culture creates its own adolescence) approach.
After a brief introduction to the key themes of adolescence from a historical, an ethnopsychanalytical and a sociocultural perspective (Patrick Haemmerle, Switzerland), Amine Benjelloun (Maroc) first will address the question of standards and values in a specific culture and how they infiltrate the consultation. Nick Kowalenko (Australia) will speak about the problem of deliberate self-harm in Australian adolescents. Sami Owaida (Gaza City/Palestine) will discuss if and how youngsters can live a normal adolescence in an abnormal sociopolitical situation. Paul Wai-Ching Wong will close the presentation with a discussion of the very contemporary ICT-problem of total psychosocial withdrawal by certain youngsters who become addicted to their screens.
Results The mosaic of these contributions should allow us to better understand the normal, i.e. “eu-functional”, and the not normal, pathological pathways from adolescence into adulthood in different cultures, sociocultural and political situations.
Conclusion The transition stage of adolescence has many different faces and appearances. We have to be careful in pathologizing too quickly certain behaviours and manifestations, without forgetting the potential risk of some self-injurious behaviours.