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In this article, the author shows how the concept of subjectivation stems from clinical practice with psychotic states at adolescence. These are linked to a melancholic core which is sometimes difficult to discern from beneath the instinctual conflit at puberty. Based on a clinical case study of entry into psychosis at adolescence followed by stabilization which made psychoanalytical work possible, as well as a review of the literature, the problematics of the fundamental relationship between psychosis and melancholy are revised in such a way as to take account of a symptom configuration recalling borderline cases in a post-Freudian theorization. Some aspects of the works of A. Green, M. Klein and P.C. Racamier are also taken into account. Particular interest is given to different types of projective defenses and the impact of early failures in the constitution of auto-eroticism, that is to say, the zone of transaction between narcissistic and objectal libido where the outcome of subjectivation is decided, between actual schizophrenia (beyond the often transitory paranoiac organizations) and the elaboration of a melancholic core.