ABSTRACT
The trauma of adolescent sexuality lies at the very heart of Freud's earliest theory of the hysterical neurosis. The distorting, traumatising intrusion of the adult desire into the child's innocent experience was the source of his patients' intolerance and rejection of sexuality when it presented itself again, after they became adult themselves. This chapter argues that the description of the "pubertal" implies a traumatic breaking through the latency equilibrium, and the capacity to work through the trauma is the burden of each individual. The fertile ground for trauma resides in the long period of dependency, the result of the vulnerability and the helplessness of the human infant to satisfy his own needs, to quieten the agitation of the drives. In ordinary development, there are many factors that help to mitigate the trauma. Amongst such capacities are all varieties of play, which, we could say, are the child's, then the adolescent's, creative way of dreaming, imagining, thinking about containable, bearable future.
