Aim - Depersonalization is a syndrome with various symptoms that has been equally described in clinical approaches during the 19th century but yet unequally defined. This feeling of strangeness is particularly frequent during adolescence, a period characterized by the importance of transformations, without necessarily being the sign of the entrance into a psychotic process. We will demonstrate that depersonalization during the adolescence is associated with a narcissistic weakness and with a pulsional treatment that passes through the scopic dimension, enabling an introspection that prevents a dislocation of consciousness. Method - First, depersonalization will be presented on the basis of its original clinical descriptions: its main definitions along with its psychiatric and psychoanalytic conceptions will be presented. Then, we will study the particularities of depersonalization during adolescence and we will illustrate its specificities at this age of narcissistic confusion, identity construction, and confrontation with passivity. We will base our study on a 15-year-old's case. Results - Depersonalization during adolescence is not necessarily the manifestation of an entrance into a schizophrenic disorder. It can be the embodiment of a fragility of the self in its construction and delimitation, and can also be a perturbation in the unification or a perception of consciousness. Discussion - Adolescents, narcissistically weakened by puberty, are usually concerned by a certain porosity between the inner and outer world. The strong mobilization of scopic drive in depersonalization shows the dissociation of the experience lived and its scopic perception, but also an attempt of a somato-psychical appropriation of the self. We can therefore notice the double potential of depersonalization during adolescence, which can be the expression of a dislocation of consciousness and appear with overwhelming hallucinations, but yet can also have a trophic connotation allowing the reinforcement of the narcissistic basis and the borders between subject and object in a true work of self-appropriation inherent in the course from adolescence to adulthood. Conclusion - Depersonalization has been studied a lot during the past century. These works underline its unequal definitions and yet its equal interest in describing its experience. The experience of depersonalization, frequent during adolescence, must not be systematically diagnosed as a symptom of psychosis. Yet, the importance of dislocation of consciousness and the massiveness of the exclusion of the object can appear with a delirious emergence. However, the trophic dynamic, the attempt in differentiating and appropriating the self through depersonalization will be carried through during adolescence thanks to psychotherapy, and lead the adolescent to a confrontation with this "I, who can be someone else", and beyond, to a meeting with this someone else in a desired and peaceful ending. (C) 2014 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
