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Bipolar troubles, thus named in contemporary international classifications, make us think about the secular heritage of figures of melancholia and mania whose principal psychoanalytic models are precisely developed. This article deals with the extentions of research on the evolution of hospitalized adolescents after a severe mood episode of the manic or mixed type. An initial observation reveals the plurality of psychopathological functioning modalities underlying bipolar troubles, as shown through analyses of the responses to Rorschach and tat tests carried out at the moment of the episode in question. We propose to compare the projective protocols of adolescents presenting borderline functioning modalities to those with psychotic ones. We study the psychic adjustments liable to be mobilised in each group to discover their common points and their specificities, particularly concerning the mobilisation of melancholic and manic reactions and their eventual masochistic treatment. In such occurences, the figures of moral masochism associated with melancholia prove to be costly but sometimes vital solutions when they propose themselves as the ultimate rampart in the face of death wish drives.