[Developmental pathways in adolescence. Narcissism and transitional phenomena].

The author describes the development of the adolescent self as a three-stage process. After termination of the accord between the young person and the parents that marks the latency period, the adolescent creates a carefully guarded inner reality serving to distance him/her from infantile images of the self and the parents. In the second stage, the young person achieves stability by electing narcissistic configurations (self-aggrandisement, dissociation, turbulent self with day-dream fantasies) which are described here as transitional phenomena and assessed by Streeck-Fischer much less negatively than by other authors. The capacity for self-distance that evolves in this stage and the attendant potential for self-definition in constant oscillation between repetition and re-creation brings the process of adolescence to its close.