ABSTRACT
Referring to observations on adolescence, notably those of Winnicott, as well as the work of Lacan and a clinical case, the author advances several propositions concerning the relationship of adolescence to time. This chapter examines the consequences of this relationship in terms of the Oedipus complex as theorized by Lacan in his discussion of the paternal metaphor. Although the adolescent experiences a return to an earlier phase that might appear to be a kind of time warp, because of the reality of the body, he or she is faced with a number of irreversible consequences. The threshold of adolescence, namely puberty, and its termination, the "crisis of adolescence" both mark the irreversibility of time. And, since young boys and girls are then forced to position themselves in terms of gender, adolescence also functions as the culmination of the process of sexual identity, begun in infancy.
