The adolescent body: a unitary and recursive perspective on the growing I-subject

In Relational Psychoanalysis it is possible to deal with corporeity and, in particular, with the body hyper-invested with meanings and signifiers of the adolescent, through the epistemic paradigm of complexity, which looks, first of all, at the I-subject as unitary, that is, for which, according to Michele Minolli, “the single part is the whole and [...] the whole is the single part”. “The I-subject is one [...] has several parts in relation to each other. The various components or the different functions must be grasped in their interaction. A model that only captures the aspect of unity and does not help to understand the recursive functioning of the subject between its parts and the whole is not adequate”. An I-subject, therefore, configured by its environment – familial, transgenerational and cultural – and by its genetics also for being ‘that specific body’, where the patient’s suffering arises from perceiving himself as inconsistent, that is, from not taking note that one is as one is also as a unique corporeality, with which one is called to come to terms; taking into account, moreover, the context of a hyper-individualistic society in which, according to Lipovetsky (2004), we are immersed, which tends to make the body a fragmented instrument of self-affirmation, also through the narcissistic and global use of the visibility provided by social networks. Within this ‘fractal’ perspective, the symptom, which has bodily manifestations (self-harm, impulsive actions, attempted suicide, eating disorders, somatizations, anxiety/panic attacks), even, especially in adolescence, in terms of identity manifestation (tattoos/piercings/earrings, clothing, make-up/hairstyles), can then find its meaning as a metaphorical and syncretic expression of all that I-subject, according to the recursive logic of ‘I am my symptom’; also intending the bodily symptomatology always in a relational perspective, since the mind is intersubjective, that is, identity and consciousness are formed in the context of relationships and not in intrapsychic isolation. In this sense, the symptom is also thought of as an expression of the patient’s bonds; through the presentation of the clinical vignettes of some adolescent patients encountered within individual and family devices, we will try to highlight how it is, then, possible to work together with each specific I-subject in its complexity, in the present and embodied moment of the analytical relationship between two or more unique corporeities, therefore also including that of the therapist, in turn seen starting from his own initial configuration.