Language:
In the research work carried out with adolescents who attend the Center for Studies on Adolescent Health at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (NESA/UERJ), it was possible to observe that the focus of their attention is their identity/singularity. They feel that they are part of society, here considered the network of functions that people perform in relation to each other (Elias, 1994), they know that they were constructed by it , however they seek their identity, their individuality, here understood as the result of a process of singular subjectivation (Guattari and Ronik, 1986).
Many times, however, we believe that it is part of human development, in adolescence, to first structure oneself, to become mature enough so that only then can one relate socially.
This conception is constructed by our society and brings with it some myths, which in our view are mistaken. One of them says that the individual, at some point, will be ready for something, or that he or she should be. Growing up, developing, being cared for by the social environment in order to prepare to become an adult, who will certainly be, or should be, able to perform his/her functions in society. This conception allows us to see the adolescent as someone fragile and vulnerable, susceptible to direct intervention. It also brings the idea that something magical happens at some point and, then, suddenly the paradigm of the natural order is no longer present. The human being stops developing, as if that were possible. He/she is ready. He/she reformulates all his/her conceptions. He/she is socially competent. Or incompetent, if this same society was not capable of preparing him/her.
We assume that the individual is the result of a process of interaction with others, therefore, for us, this means that he/she exists since birth, when he/she establishes his/her first relationships with the social environment.
According to Elias (1994 p.31), “(..) the individual always exists, at the most fundamental level, in relationship with others, and this relationship has a particular structure that is specific to his society. He acquires the individual mark from the history of these relationships, and, thus, in a broader context of the history of the entire human network in which he grows and lives”.
For psychoanalysis, human beings would not survive without constant mutual interaction with others. This process would begin when intrauterine life is replaced by life outside the womb and would last until death. According to Borges (1995, p. 114), “the original situation is the confrontation of the newborn, the one who does not yet speak, with the adult world. Confrontation with tasks of a level too high relative to his degree of maturity. In short, it is a being who, left to his own devices, is incapable of helping himself and, therefore, needs help from others… A situation that also defines the fundamental dependence of the subject on the other, from which there is no escape. (…) the first dangerous situations are produced, creating the need to be loved, from which we will never free ourselves”.
In their stories, the adolescents show all the time how conflicting this interaction often is, but they continue to seek out contact with other young people. The social environment does not allow them to get together with children, although it would often be desired. The adult environment, in turn, scares them. They fear the struggle for life, because it is very clear to them that the historical moment in which we live is one of social exclusion. They are, therefore, confined and in a certain way contained within the group of human beings living in a space/time called adolescence.
The adolescent, in our days, is considered, almost pejoratively, “a different person, pimply, somewhat clumsy, critical, acidic, ironic, sometimes mocking – a stranger you do not know” (Zagury, 1995). The health sector contributed to the creation of the image of this strange being who could not be called an individual, would not be part of the social context, and was only preparing for it.
Norbert Elias brings to the discussion the concepts of individual and society. It clarifies how mistaken the antagonistic positioning between the two is, as well as the stance of those who defend the supremacy of one over the other: it criticizes, on the one hand, those who consider society a means that the individual uses to meet his needs, and, on the other hand, those who claim that the individual is part of society and should therefore do everything to maintain it, since society is its purpose, and needs to exist in a full and balanced way. From this last view, the individual is nothing more than a mere cog in a larger machine, always at its service.
However, we often have difficulty understanding how this relationship works, since we do not see it as antagonistic. Society is also not a mere sum of individuals, nor is it something amorphous and without its own contours. The adolescents who told us their stories are part of a social and historical context that is part of their formation and structuring as individuals. In other words, if these same adolescents had been born in another place, or in this same place but at another time, they would certainly have different characteristics than they have today. However, they are unique, singular, and can be described, but never summed up. Elias (1994), in a very didactic way, based on Aristotle, who once made an analogy between stones and a house, shows us that the sum leads to nothing: “nor can it be understood by thinking of the house as a summative unit, an accumulation of stones; perhaps this is not entirely useless for understanding the entire house, but it certainly does not take us very far to perform a statistical analysis of the characteristics of each stone and then calculate the average”.
Even though we know that we still have a long way to go in this discussion, we can anticipate and make some considerations on this topic. It is not possible for an individual to be happy living in a society full of conflicts, disturbances, uncertainties, and feeling that their survival is threatened. Nor can we speak of a just society if one of its individuals is not served by it. At this moment,
we perceive, in the adolescents’ statements, a deep distrust in relation to the society of adults , from which they feel excluded. It is hostile to them. They feel a great need to strengthen themselves in order to face life.
When they seek health services, they are looking for care for their problems , that is, their illnesses, their diseases, their doubts… We then return to our initial dilemma: we are faced with a socially and historically constructed individual, yet unique, with desires, fears, and dreams. When they enter health care services, they want their health to be restored. And we have to offer them a model of comprehensive health that only sees them in their condition as citizens of the future, healthy enough to be productive. This model biologizes the psychological and social aspects, standardizing not only the health care of adolescents, but also the adolescents themselves.
In their narratives, the adolescents make it clear that they constitute/consider themselves individuals and that they are part, as they did and continue to be, of society, of the social group as a whole, and not just of a group made up of amorphous beings whose only relationship with the social environment is passivity, dependence, vulnerability, and the fact that they are between 10 and 19 years old.
The network of social relations acts in such a way that adolescents are often labeled as rebellious, inconsequential and paradoxically responsible for the harm they cause to themselves and others. Society dictates its rules to them, participates in their formation from birth, but at the same time restricts their autonomy. The idea is outlined that, between childhood and adulthood, the human being lives in some other place. This place is situated on a distant plane and with a completely strange and unknown way of life. It is therefore necessary to bring them into it. However, to do so, it is essential to format and prepare them.
The analogy between public and private is present. The adolescent, just like the child, would be part of the private world and, like the child, would need to be protected and molded in order to leave its confinement – the family. The family would have to exist in order to exercise its role as protector and guardian of that human being in growth and development. This explanation, however, is not enough to help us find the place of the adolescent. He is not confined to the private domain like a child, and he does not dominate the public space: he seems to be somewhere between the two. And it is precisely in this locus that his story unfolds, untouchable by the society of the adult world.
1. Professor of Adolescent Medicine at the School of Medical Sciences, Center for Studies on Adolescent Health, at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (FCM/NESA/UERJ); PhD in Public Health.