[Psychological aspects of today's adolescents' sexuality].
Sexuality, particularly during adolescence, involves personality as a whole. During puberty, which starts the process of adolescence, adolescents are faced with the fact they have not chosen their body which sends them back to the experience of passivity of childhood. It arouses in the most vulnerable adolescents what remains of expectations or affective dependence regarding their family circle, and thus they are confronted with that basic human paradox, i.e. to be oneself one has to accept to receive and to feed upon others and at the same time to be different from them. Such a fear of being dependent on others may lead adolescents to deprive themselves of what they expect to receive from others. Sexuality and the body, through the emotions they summon, are particularly subject to aggressive or rejection behaviours which characterize that age.
Jeammet
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Service de psychiatrie de l'adolescent et du jeune adulte, institut mutualiste Montsouris, 42, boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris, France. philippe.jeammet@imm.fr
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D005190:Family; D006801:Humans; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D011627:Puberty / Q000523:psychology*; D019529:Sexuality / Q000523:psychology*