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Two psychic conflicts traverse the adolescent developmental process: the first concerns the post-pubescent specificity of incestuous desires and the capacity to overcome them through an opening to the complementarity of the sexes. The second concerns the necessary de-idealization of the pre-oedipal parent-figure of the same sex. Using excerpts from psychotherapy with an adolescent "John," we explore the father-son bond in adolescence and the ambivalent fantasies brought into play for both father and son in oedipal and pre-oedipal modes, notably including fantasies of devouring. These fantasies interweave with the de-idealization of the father figure, contributing to the origination of both parricidal and matricidal wishes in the adolescent.