[Stress and panic. Psychoanalytic aspects]. / Stress et panique. Aspects psychanalytiques.

In 1956, Selye described the reactions of the human body when confronted to an aggression. The psychoanalytic point of view was much anterior to Selye's researches and works, provided a wider perspective for a better understanding of the different ways a patient would react when facing a "stressing event". Freud brought out the concept of the "psychic trauma" whose origin might be due to a precocious process of sexual seduction. It was also noted that its source could be found in the fantasmatic activity of the patient. Other signs of the psychic trauma have been observed as the effect of an absence or of a lack of excitement. Finally, in some circumstances, the psychical trauma may contribute to build a positive structure for the "EGO" because of the changes it implies and allows.

Adolescence: the crossroads of violence.

We sought to distinguish between aggressivity and true violence. Violence is a vital force, a life instinct, or, more particularly, a survival instinct. Violence is neither good nor bad. Everything depends on the way in which this essential instinct is used in the succession of crises that mark the affective development of each and every one of us, and, in particular, during the crisis of adolescence. The measure of prevention could be based on the elements of pure violence and not on established aggressivity. The primary prevention of the deviations toward natural violence fits into the framework of the education for health. That is only possible if we today prepare future parents and educators of the children of tomorrow.

[Addiction and primary prevention]. / Toxicomanies et prevention primaire.

Primary prevention sensu strictiori of the abuse of and dependence on, drugs most not only reduce their availability but, more importantly, strive to prevent the development of a demand for them already at an early age. To this end, the factors arousing such demands must be known. Epidemiological research should elucidate the environmental and behavioural traits which may pre-dispose the young individual to turn to drugs, alcohol, violence, crime, or even suicide, i.e., the development of chemical dependence cannot be an isolated target of preventive activities. In fact, primary prevention which envisages specifically and exclusively the misuse of drugs is not realistic. Rather, the preventive efforts must address the totality of factors involved in the possible development of deviating behaviour and should operate within the framework and as an integral component of health education as a whole with the aim to enable the individual to lead a healthy life--physically, mentally, and socially.

[Crisis in adolescence]. / Contestation de l'adolescence.

The authors are reconsidering the usual notion of adolescence taken as a period of contest, as an awkward age, a period of crisis and of rupture. They successively examine the classical view of adolescence, some of the interactions between body and wind, the idea of crisis and the idea of rupture; and they put forward the following hypothesis: Adults--parents--educators--therapists consider the adolescent, struggling with his difficulties, with a defensive complacency which aims at eluding a reactivation of their own identification crisis; this is particularly shown in the interactions which, during this period, reactualize the conflicts about the organization of the genital as well for the adult as for the adolescent. They lean on a few clinical cases to back up their hypothesis and suggest that, in the treatments of adolescents or post-adolescents, a special interest should be taken in the presence or absence of a fantasy of rupture in correlation with rupture behaviors.

[Primary prevention in the area of drug addiction: perspectives, errors and fallacies]. / Prevention primaire en matiere de toxicomanies: perspectives, erreurs et illusions.

Primary prevention in drug abuse has been, most of the time, reduced to its informational aspect. This paper points out some of the errors made in this field, both by contributing to the 'inflation' of the drug problem and by using scare tactics as preventive arguments. It invites consideration of drug addiction not as an isolated problem, but as one of the multiple results of an existential crisis, the author tries to show that in this field the emphasis of primary prevention should be on education.

Young people, drugs...and others.

This paper reviews the emotional and relational difficulties associated with the crisis of adolescence, drug dependence being only one of the possible disorders. The use of drugs, perceived as a temporary self-defence measure in the struggle against a relatively serious state of depression possibly leading to suicide, is often also a form of aggression against the self. In addition, the creation, for example, by television or the supermarkets of artificial neo-needs encourages young people to expect magic, external solutions to their problems. The deficiency of imagination found among young people reflects the inadequacy of the ideals of early childhood (which are totally out of tune with reality). By setting themselves inordinately high goals in compensation, young people exaggerate the exterior ideal demands only to reject them later on because they are unattainable. The author argues against the setting up of primary prevention agencies specializing in the problems of adolescence and argues the case for positive primary preventive action in the field of health.