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Institutions for adolescents accept all sorts of demands on the one hand. On the other hand, the extension of delinquency socializes crime. The therapist may consequently accept crossroad situations in which the penal, the clinical and the social meet, as in the case of a young criminal we received. There is an upheaval of usual clinical practice, as the practitioner must be able to cope with the possibility of recidivism. We give an account of the clinical perspective adopted in this case, one which emphasized fantasy rather than drives, and which seemed to us a more honest way of accepting our social responsibility.