The prelude to the extreme: Adolescence and violence

Abstract

The questions on the causes of violence in adolescence (self-directed and heterodirected) run through the sign of a deep unease (not only psychic but also formative and cultural), which concerns both pedagogical reflection and the educational work carried out in formal (school and family) and informal (places of aggregation and socialising activities among peers) venues. The ways in which adolescent aggression manifests itself can be manifold, even reaching those – apparently anonymous – forms of digital communication. Giovanni Maria Bertin was the first to realise the importance of Erich Fromm’s work on «human destructiveness», understanding the contrast inherent in the psyche (and in the formation of the young person) between two different tendencies: biophilia and necrophilia. On the recovery of this line of interpretation, Melanie Klein’s and Wilfred Bion’s insights into the development of the two functional psychic mechanisms, namely introjection and projective identification, are grafted in this essay and in a pedagogical direction.

Keywords

• bertin
• fromm
• necrophilia
• biophilia
• identification