Rorschachiana 33, 108124 DOI: 10.

1027/1192-5604/a000031
2012 Hogrefe
D. Laimou
Drives Publishing
and Diffusion of Instincts in Suicidal Adolescents

Original Article

An Epistemological and Methodological

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Approach to Drives and Diffusion of Instincts

Through the Clinical Assessment of Suicidal
Adolescents
The Contribution of the Rorschach Test

Dimitra Laimou
Laboratoire de Psychologie Clinique et de Psychopathologie (EA 4056),
Universit Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cit, Institut de Psychologie, Paris, France

Abstract. This article discusses the results of a current research that explores the
psychic function of 17 suicidal adolescents aged from 13 to 17 years through
projective tests and a clinical interview. The paper focuses on the tendency of these
adolescents to respond to the activation of drives in two extreme ways: the com-
pulsion toward the diffusion of instincts, as a result of excessive excitation; and a
state of inhibition, resulting from being cut off from the sources of these drives,
in an effort to protect from the severe consequences of the diffusion effect. This
paper contributes to the comprehension of internal factors that can lead teenagers
to commit suicide. In addition, the paper aims to aid in the development of an
epistemological and methodological approach within the field of projective assess-
ment through Rorschach concerning what are perhaps the most central and con-
troversial concepts in the theoretical framework of psychoanalysis: aggressive
drives, diffusion, and death drives.

Keywords: adolescence, aggressive drives, death drives, Rorschach, suicide at-

tempt

Introduction

Suicide is a complex phenomenon that implicates different factors. Be-

sides biological and genetic factors that seem to be related to youth
suicide (Mann & Currier, 2007), social factors such as alcohol, drugs
(Schaffer, Jeglic, & Stanley, 2008), bullying (Brunstein Klomek, Marroc-

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 Drives and Diffusion of Instincts in Suicidal Adolescents

co, Kleinman, Schonfeld, & Gould, 2007), and divorce (Brodsky et al.,
2008) are also involved. Bursztein and Apter (2008) point out that,
among psychological factors, problems with specific autobiographical
memory (Williams, 1996) and poor decision-making (Oldershaw, Gri-
ma, & Jollant, 2008) seem to be associated with suicide. Impulsivity
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(Bursztein & Apter, 2008) and hopelessness (Reinecke, Washburn, &

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Becker-Weidman, 2007) constitute other psychological characteristics

that play a very significant role in the mechanisms leading young people
to engage in suicidal behavior.
This paper studies some of the internal processes, both conscious and
unconscious, that can lead adolescents to engage in this particular form
of impulsive behavior (suicide attempt) from a psychoanalytical point of
view. The psychological functioning of suicidal or self-harm adolescents
was studied in recent researches using the same methodology and the
same theoretical framework, examples being Matha (2009) with a partic-
ular focus on masochism and De Kernier (2009) with a particular focus
on melancholic identification. Diwo, Thomassin, Kabuth, and Messaou-
di (2004) studied the instinctual impulses using a more quantitative
methodological approach.
In this paper we focus on the impact of death instinct and diffusion of
instincts on containers, and on the balance between libidinal and aggres-
sive drives. Through the clinical assessment of suicidal adolescents we
illustrate a methodological and epistemological approach to these theo-
retical notions directly linked to suicide in adolescence.

Drive Theory: A Widely Debated Theory

During the Vienna Psychoanalytic Associations 1910 gathering, organ-

ized at a time when the educational world was appealing to the world of
science for answers on the subject of suicide among schoolchildren
(Freidman, 1967), the great psychoanalysts of the era including Sig-
mund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Wilhelm Stekel met to discuss their hy-
potheses for explaining the suicidal tendency. These hypotheses had a
widely acknowledged inf luence on their successors thinking, and 100
years later, in articles and books being published today, it is still common
to read phrases used at the meeting, such as: Probably no one finds the
mental energy required to kill himself unless, in the first place, in doing
so he is at the same time killing an object with whom he has identified

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 D. Laimou

himself. (Freud, 1920/2004, pp. 260261) This particular form of vio-

lence, where the subject is simultaneously both victim and aggressor, still
preoccupies the psychoanalytic community, which tries to describe the
internal mechanisms leading to suicide, based on Freuds drive theory.
In the final theoretical configuration invented by the founder of psycho-
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analysis to explain the origin and function of hatred and love (Freud,
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1920/1950), he set forth a dualistic conception of instincts that opposes life

instincts to death instincts. Life instincts include the sexual instincts and the
self-preservation instincts. Their essential function is to establish ever great-
er units and to disarm the death instinct by binding themselves to it. The
death instinct, on the other hand, aims at destructing the unity and obedi-
ence to the principle of Nirvana, which tends to nullify all excitement.
According to Klein, There is always an interaction, although in varying
proportions, between libidinal and aggressive impulses, corresponding to
the fusion between life and death instincts (Klein, 1966, p. 188). Segal
(1986, p. 36) asserts that this fusion is made under the aegis of the life
instinct, and the death instinct turned away aggressiveness is in the
service of life. This state of fusion guarantees the homeostasis of the system
of drives that protects the Ego from the death instincts disintegrating and
destructive function.
The origins of hatred are perhaps among the most debated metapsy-
chological, theoretical, and clinical topics within the field of psychoanal-
ysis. Ever since Freud postulated his speculative hypothesis regarding
the existence of a drive at the root of the human tendency toward de-
struction, psychoanalysts have discussed his theory, dividing into differ-
ent trends. The core question of the debate still hinges on the pertinence
of the death instinct. Some psychoanalysts remain faithful to the hypoth-
esis of the existence of the death drive (Klein, 1966), while others dismiss
this term from their vocabulary and replace it with concepts such as
aggressiveness (Winnicott, 2000) or violence (Bergeret, 1984, 1994).
The theoretical inconsistency and lack of semantic clarity in the con-
cept of the death instinct are widely acknowledged and require theoret-
ical psychoanalysts to continue to work on modifications and clarifica-
tions for some time yet. However, it seems to us that a number of mental
phenomena will remain obscure as long as we do not refer to a factor
opposing the mental processes that result from the action of the libido.
The dualistic conception of drives constitutes an interesting basis for
understanding certain behaviors such as suicide, which, even after so
many years of collective thought, still perplexes us.

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 Drives and Diffusion of Instincts in Suicidal Adolescents

Diffusion, Death Drive, and Suicide Attempt in

Adolescence

The relevance of applying the death instinct concept to self-destructive-

ness in adolescence has often been challenged. Indeed, it is sometimes
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said that to accept the existence of an internal process during adoles-

cence, leading to the degradation of the object relation and to mental
death, would constitute a deeply pessimistic position. This position
would be caused by the difficult countertransference emotions and by
feelings of impotence when we deal with patients who make us fail con-
stantly. However, not to recognize in the violence the adolescent express-
es through a suicide attempt a dimension that escapes the functions of
the libido, is perhaps too optimistic a reaction considering the degrada-
tion of certain vital psychic processes characterizing the psychic func-
tioning of these adolescents.
Perret-Catipovic (1998) argues that there is a particular form of hate
that indicates the existence of an internal struggle with an object. This
hate does not appear in a context of pure destructiveness since the link
with a total object is maintained. We believe that suicide in adolescence
is not the result of a sheer destructive process. However, we do believe
that in the aggressiveness suicidal adolescents express through a suicide
attempt we can locate some functions of the death instinct appearing as
a result of the fragility of fusion of instincts. This process is directly
linked to the adolescence process.
The destructive aspect of the suicide attempt, in our opinion, fits the
notion of the death instinct to the extent that, as Rechardt states
(1986), it is a matter of a drive tending toward the total discharge of
drives at the price of the disappearance of the object and of the diffu-
sion. For this author, the derivatives of the death instinct can be intensi-
fied by a brutal increase in the amount of libido. This metapsychological
notion (the death instinct) could be applied to the clinical study of sui-
cide in adolescence. The fiery drives and the resexualization of parental
ties induce important upheavals at the economy system.
The impact of adolescence reveals itself most particularly here: Under the pres-
sure of the drives and of the phantasy bond that it implies, the previous organiza-
tion is overturned and transformed into a situation of either self-reorganizing or
self-disorganizing. (Emmanuelli & Azoulay, 2001, p. 15)

This brutal increase of libido can render the fusion process fragile. The
death instinct then runs the risk of operating more or less autonomously

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 D. Laimou

without its destructive functions being controlled by the action of the

life drive.

A Clinical Illustration
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The suicidal act emerges within a context of a drive upheaval that char-
acterizes this period of life and reveals a weak fusion of instincts. The
moment when adolescents attempts to kill themselves is, in this sense,
marked by a fragile fusion of instincts. The destructive drives take the
upper hand, the life instinct finds itself weakened in its function, and the
object is reduced to a simple target of attack. Based on research we have
carried out, we emphasize certain manifestations of the diffusion of
instincts as it appears through the drive disorganization characterizing
suicidal adolescents.

Description of the Sample

The sample of this research included 15 female and 2 male adolescents

aged between 13 and 17 years old who made a suicide attempt (suicidal
adolescents). This proportion of male/female adolescents is congruent
with epidemiological data showing that suicide attempt is more frequent
among female adolescents than among male adolescents (Perrin-Es-
calon et al., 2004). These adolescents were server users of psychiatric
services, pediatric services, and consultancy centers. The most common
method of suicide among these adolescents was drug intoxication (11
suicide attempts), followed by cutting (4 suicide attempts), and jumping
from a height (2 suicide attempts). One female adolescent tempted to
jump off in front of the metro, and one male adolescent tried to choke
on a scarf. The assessment was designed to serve the purposes of the
research project.

Tools

Both the Rorschach Test and the TAT were used for the assessment of
these adolescents, since, according to Brelet-Foulard and Chabert
(1990), the joint use of those two tests can give us a complete image of
the mental functioning of an individual. However, for the purposes of

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 Drives and Diffusion of Instincts in Suicidal Adolescents

this paper we are going to limit ourselves to the contribution of Ror-

schach Test.
The Rorschach test (. . .) since it engages both body and psyche,
brings on a reactivation of the drive and facilitates the creation of a
transitional area favorable to phantasies (Emmanuelli & Azoulay,
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2001), thereby lending itself to the analysis of the means used by the
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adolescent in order to deal with the drives related to the onset of puber-
ty. Furthermore, it allows the quality of the fusion of instincts to be
appreciated.
Our methodological approach relies on the researches of the cole de
Paris and especially on the studies of the research group of the Institut
de Psychologie de lUniversit Paris Descartes, using projective tests. We
wish to point out that in order to study the quality of fusion of instincts
using this test, we delved into the totality of responses of each subject
and the nature of their associations. We were also particularly attentive
to transference and countertransference as they emerge within the sin-
gularity of each meeting with each subject. Nonetheless, for practical
reasons, in the present work, we limit ourselves to certain precise aspects
of our study.
We refer to inkblots II and III of the Rorschach test, which set strong
aggressive or libidinal drives in motion. According to Chabert (1983),
the red color of theses inkblots activates affects and impulses. As a result,
the responses to these inkblots can provide an interesting illustration of
the fusion of instincts quality.
In order to explore the impact of impulses, we reverted to factors
pointed out by Chabert (1983, 1998, 1990) and Emmanuelli and Azoulay
(2001). Thus, special focus was given, among others, to the quality of the
perceptive frame and to answers that involve kinesthesia. Those two
factors are not exclusive, but they are an interesting indicator of the
capacity to contain and to deal with impulses.

Results

Two main tendencies were observed among these adolescents: One ten-
dency was the compulsion toward the diffusion of instincts, as a result
of excessive excitation. The second tendency was a state of inhibition: A
result of being cut off from the sources of these drives, in an effort to
protect them from the severe consequences of the diffusion effect.

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 D. Laimou

These observed strategies are often combined in various ways. Inhibi-

tion and rigidity alternate quite often with tendencies to discharge of
internal tension. Nevertheless, general dominant trends are observed in
each adolescent.
It is also important to underline that a small number of the adolescents
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we encountered deviate from these general trends. This paper describes

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the general trends observed in a significant number of adolescents.

Thus, we do not focus on the particularities of the functioning of these
adolescents. However, we think that further study of these exceptions
needs to be done in order to elaborate a more subtle hypothesis.

Diffusion of the Instincts and Psychic Containers

The process of drive diffusion does not leave the containing function
intact. The latter, which according to E. Bick (1968) is the result of the
introjection of an external object able to ensure this function, allows the
experience of the drive to be received and made bearable.
For a significant number of the adolescents we dealt with (11 out of
the sample of 17), the responses to the Rorschachs inkblots II and III
show a process of attack on the containers. This reveals a fragile Ego that
allows quantities of energy to escape.
Example: Two lungs. They look like two slightly damaged lungs. Red makes me
think of . . . Red is like blood, but then its symmetrical like the lungs. I would say
the lungs of someone who smokes. Because of the red color (. . .)
(Card II) (G / CF/ anatomy, symmetry, blood)
This adolescent sees in this inkblot damaged organs and blood. We believe these
representations show the fragility of boundaries.

This kind of response reveals the transparency and the permeability of

boundaries, when the adolescents face their drives that erupt in re-
sponse to the red color of the inkblots. The instinctual impulses gener-
ate disorganization, hindering the symbolic processes and the second-
ary process. This disorganization and the permeability of boundaries
indicate an internal process of diffusion.
Three adolescents resort to avoiding of the red stain of the inkblot
and engage in a conformist and descriptive reading of the material. In
this way, they manage to avoid the impact of the activation of the drives.
Their need to control the drives comes at the price of impoverishing
their capacity for phantasy. This inhibition, which appears to be a defen-

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 Drives and Diffusion of Instincts in Suicidal Adolescents

sive reaction, seems to protect them from their own instinctual impulses
and indicates the incapacity of the Ego to tolerate the onset of the drives
related to puberty.
Example: A butterf ly. That is all. The head, the feet, the body. The form (Card
II) (G / F + / A)
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The response butterf ly is a very popular response on this card. The form deter-
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mines this answer, and the color is not integrated in the perception. This repre-
sentation is not at all original and shows the adolescents need to avoid a more
personal engagement in the interpretation of the inkblot.

These adolescents are responding to the drive by limiting their associa-

tive activity, which freezes the thought process. The restriction of verbal
productivity and the poor and unvarying nature of the representations
account for the existence of diminished thought. The inhibition reveals
itself through the concrete reading of the material, which relies on rigid
defenses and a submission to perceptual evidences.
The adolescents responses show their effort to inhibit the drives. This
inhibition seems to have a defensive value that guarantees the homeo-
stasis of the subjects drive system. Although this sort of defense is much
too radical, it is effective against the threat of the diffusion of instincts.
As long as this inhibition remains effective, the Ego is not threatened in
any direct way. Nonetheless, we cannot refrain from wondering what
would happen if the inhibition were lifted. Would the defense mecha-
nisms be sufficiently solid to allow the adolescent to deal with a sudden
instinctual impulse or would he/she feel tempted to resort, at some
point, to the suicidal act in order to re-establish a balance of the drives?
The vulnerability and the tendency of adolescents to act would lead us
to opt for the second suggestion.
Only one adolescent managed to deal with impulses awakened in these
inkblots in a rather subtle way. In this case, inkblots II and III did not
reveal the fragility of psychic envelopes and limits of the adolescent. On
the other hand, the answers given to other inkblots are more illustrative
of the attack of containers.

Clinical Examples

Alice is a 15-year-old adolescent. The methods used were cutting and

jumping from a height. We encountered this adolescent in the psychiat-
ric service of a French hospital.

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 D. Laimou

She expresses very suddenly precarious phantasies of a torn skin, ripped

apart and damaged. Those phantasies of an attack on the skin are rendered
bearable by the masochistic pleasure that accompanies them (while giving
theses answers Alice smiles in a particularly sadistic way). Thus, confronted
with the drives, she evokes violent representations of skin torn off from a
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frog (card I) with masochistic jubilation. This representation revealing

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phantasies of torn skin that leaves the body deprived of its protective surface
motivates the search for a mental container. This makes the absence of a
limiting surface necessary to assume the protective function of containment
more bearable. This need to establish the containing function is expressed
by the following responses: card II a horses skin with the blood, card
IX the skin of a cut-up rat. Nonetheless, the effort to find sufficiently
solid containers fails, revealing the extent of the attack on the boundaries
(the skin is violated and attacked).
In this instance we observe a function of the death instinct that attacks
the Ego and its envelopes, causing, as Anzieu (1987) states, the displacement
of the destructive drives into the body. The toxic activity of the skin-
Ego, which is the result of the action of the death instinct on the containers,
alters the vital functions that the skin-Ego is intended to ensure (Anzieu,
1985). Anzieu associates such attacks against the psychic containers with
the destructive and silent function of the death instinct. These unconscious
attacks against the containers arise, according to this author, from
parts of the Self merged with representative of self-destructive drives inherent to
the Id, deported to the periphery of the Self, lodged in the superficial layer which
is the skin Ego. They gnaw its continuity, they destroy its cohesiveness and they
alter its functions by inverting their aims. (Anzieu, 1985, p. 131)

Valery is a 15-year-old adolescent. The method she used was cutting. We

encountered her in the psychiatric service of a French hospital. With this
teenager, the impact of the activation of drives pushes her toward rein-
forcing her weakening mental envelopes. Failure to reinforce the latter
renders the Ego particularly vulnerable to the attacks of the drives. Thus,
phantasies that reveal an attack on identity and a weakening of the con-
tainers (wings that bleed in card II or sick babies in card IX) inter-
vene and break the associative process that is rigidified by the struggle
against the drives. The threat of disorganization of the Ego activates
intense defensive strategies and inhibition, which hinder the expression
of drives. Thus, the expression of phantasies is possible only if the rigid
defenses become atrophied by their confrontation with this overly de-
manding and urgent drive.

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 Drives and Diffusion of Instincts in Suicidal Adolescents

A Fragile Balance Between Libidinal Drives and

Aggressive Drives

The nature of the representations and phantasies of these adolescents

in reaction to inkblots II and III allow us to pinpoint some particularities
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in the balance between aggressive and libidinal drives. The confronta-

tion with the drives often gives rise to phantasies that reveal the weak-
ness of the libidinal current. Answers that reveal an insufficiently fusion
between death and life instincts are frequently given.
Example: Am I obliged to see something? Blood. Someone who has done some-
thing to himself in order to die. Someone who has fallen down and is bleeding.
(Card II) (G / KC / H / blood, symmetry)

The fragile balance between the libidinal current and the aggressive one
generated by the f luctuations of drives accounts for the fragile nature of
the fusion process. The weak eroticization of the representations and the
weakness of the libidinal current and the fragility of the process of fu-
sion are expressed by destructive phantasies as well as by the difficulty
to express the aggressive motions in a creative and f lexible way. The
strong activation of the drives, as demonstrated here, generates a threat
of drive diffusion with which the adolescent cannot always cope with or
copes with in precarious ways.
In the presence of inkblots provoking the emergence of drives, other
adolescents attempt to control its force by mobilizing radical and ex-
tremely rigid defenses. In this way, they neutralize the aggressive and
libidinal load of the drive, at the price of impoverishing their psychic
resources.
Example: A butterf ly. The shape.
(Card II) (G / F + / A/ ban)
This adolescent gives a very popular response and excludes the impact of the drive
by avoiding the color stain of the card.

Drive Diffusion and the Fragile Nature

of the Objects Relation

According to A. Green (2002), the solidity of the fusion of instincts

depends essentially on the relationship the subject maintains with the
object. In order to explore the role and the objects function at the core

117
 D. Laimou

of the drive system, we studied the modalities of investment in the object

in situations loaded with strong drives. In concrete terms, we studied
card III of the Rorschach Test, which allows us to explore the way the
object is invested when the drives arise.
In the presence of card III of the Rorschach test, four adolescents seem
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to mobilize protective means that allow them to def lect drives emerging
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from their contact with others. Drives, instead of feeding the object-re-
lation and the subjects desire to interact with others, appear to block
their access to the object. Thus, these adolescents avoid the relationship
to the object, an attitude expressed in either the total absence of any
investment in the object or in the restriction of the interaction with the
other.
Example: This makes me think of X-rays. A skeleton or things like that. An ultra-
sound scan.
(Card III)
This adolescent denies the relational aspect of this card and does not evoke any
representation related to the object-relationship.
Example: Like an ant, like two.
(Card III)
This adolescent perceives the relational aspect of this inkblot but is not able to
evoke any interaction. The investment in the object is avoided.

Finally, in other cases, the aggressive drives, emerging within the frame-
work of a relationship, overf low and reveal the weakness of diffusion.
Example: Two people who kill each other, who have negative thoughts about the
other and who kill each other.
(Card III) (G / K + / H / ban)
In this case, the aggressiveness is expressed in a crude way, to the detriment of
adequate repression and secondarization.

For a great number of adolescents, the phantasies, the defenses against

the emergence of drives, and the modalities of the object-relationship
show how difficult it is for them to function in a transitional area where
the antithetic drives can be expressed in a creative and supple manner
thanks to the engagement of the object. Indeed, faced with the objects
presence, these adolescents resort to all-or-nothing reactions, which
reveal either an effort to control all instinctual impulses or to give in to
the overf lowing aggressive drives.

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 Drives and Diffusion of Instincts in Suicidal Adolescents

Conclusion

These clinical observations emphasize the splitting logic that seems to

prevail at the core of the drive system in the suicidal adolescent. This
logic confronts us clinicians with the paradoxical specificity of the
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adolescents demand. Mental suffering is treated according to modali-

ties that seem antithetical: Sometimes it is rejected, sometimes fully felt
under the impact of the disorganizing of the Ego.
We believe that such tendencies are associated with suicidal behav-
ior. For adolescents the tendency to inhibit drives is sometimes the
only way to preserve the integrity of their Ego from the potentially
destructive impact of impulses. As mentioned before, this inhibition
guarantees the homeostasis of the subjects drive system. The threat
of suicide appears with the lifting of this defensive attitude. The lifting
of inhibition obliges the adolescent to confront the difficulty of deal-
ing with instinctual impulses. The access to the object is often blocked,
and the adolescent goes down a destructive path leading him to attack
his own body in order to re-establish internal balance a radical reduc-
tion of tensions (Nirvana principle).
Further research needs to be done to find out whether these strate-
gies also appear in suicidal adults and more generally in other groups
of people facing difficulties in dealing with drives. Comparative re-
search would help us to understand the way different populations
(such as suicidal adults) react to these inkblots and to better perceive
the impact of adolescence.
To pinpoint the process of drive diffusion at the clinical level is a
very difficult task, particularly because of a lack of clarity in the con-
cept of the death drive as well as the indirect nature of its action. To
evoke a phantasy, whatever its content, presupposes the existence of a
libidinal investment in the thought process. As we have tried to illus-
trate through the clinical assessment of the suicidal adolescent, the
impact of the diffusion of instincts can then be perceived, not only by
representations loaded with crude violence but also through the indi-
rect functions of the death drive (the violation of the containers, the
degradation of the symbolic nature of the phantasies, and the rein-
forcement of opposing logics).
This article emphasizes certain particularities in the way suicidal ad-
olescents deal with drives and contributes to the development of a Ror-
schach research methodology that may allow us to explore the impact

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 D. Laimou

of the activation of drives and their consequences as they appear

through the process of diffusion. We think that it is very important to
promote approaches to the Rorschach Test which take into account
the complexity and conceptual density of the psychoanalytic notions
and which consider the subject as a whole with his or her uniqueness
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and complexity.
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Dimitra Laimou
3 rue du pas de la mule
75004 Paris
France
Tel. +33 629983099
E-mail dimitra.laimou@wanadoo.fr

Summary

This article discusses the results of a research that explores the psy-
chic function of seventeen suicidal adolescents aged from 13 to 17
years through projective tests and a clinical interview. The paper fo-
cuses on the tendency of these adolescents to respond to the activa-
tion of drives in two extreme ways: One extreme being the compul-
sion toward the diffusion of instincts, as a result of excessive excita-
tion. The second extreme being a state of inhibition: A result of a cut
off from the sources of these drives, in an effort to protect from the
severe consequences of the diffusion effect. The aim of this paper to
contribute to the comprehension of internal factors which can lead
teenagers to commit suicide. In addition the paper aims to aid in the
development of an epistemological and methodological approach,
within the field of projective assessment through Rorschach, to what
are perhaps one of the most central and controversial concepts in the
theoretical framework of psychoanalysis: aggressive drives, diffusion
of instincts and death drives.

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 Drives and Diffusion of Instincts in Suicidal Adolescents
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
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Rsum

Lobjectif de cet article est de discuter les rsultats dune recherche qui
travers les tests projectifs et lentretien clinique, vise explorer le
fonctionnement psychique de 17 adolescents gs de 13 17 ans. Cet
article met laccent sur la tendance de ces adolescents rpondre la
ractivation pulsionnelle selon deux logiques qui sont extrmes: dun
ct, ils se confrontent la dliaison pulsionnelle qui apparat comme
la consquence dune surcharge dexcitation et de lautre, ils recourent
linhibition. Cette dernire constitue la consquence de la coupure des
liens avec les sources pulsionnelles et permet de se protger des cons-
quences svres de la dsintrication. Lobjectif de cet article est de con-
tribuer la comprhension des facteurs internes qui peuvent pousser les
adolescents au suicide. En outre, cet article vise contribuer au dvelop-
pement dune approche pistmologique et mthodologique au Ror-

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 D. Laimou

schach de certains concepts, peut-tre les plus centraux et les plus con-
troverss au sein de la thorie psychanalytique: les pulsions agressives,
la dsintrication et la pulsion de mort.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Resumen
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

El propsito de este artculo, es presentar los resultados de una investi-

gacin, que mediante pruebas proyectivas y entrevistas clnicas, examina
la funcin psquica de 17 adolescentes entre 13 y 17 aos. El artculo se
enfoca en la tendencia de los adolescentes de enfrentar la reactivar im-
pulsiva de dos maneras extremas. Por un lado, sufren las consecuencias
de un desbloqueo istintivo a causa de una excitacin excesiva. Por otro
lado, presentan una intensa inhibicin, como resultado de un corte con
los instintos impulsivos, que les permite evitar las severas consecuencias
del desbloqueo instintivo. El objetivo de este artculo es contribuir,
primeramente al entendimiento de los factores interiores que puedan
dirigir a los adolescentes a suicidarse. Adems intenta acercar medi-
ante un proceso epistemolgico y metodolgico, a travs de Rorschach
unos de los ms significantes y controversiales conceptos de la psi-
coanlisis: el impulso agresivo, el desbloqueo instintivo y el impulso de
la muerte.

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