Evrard, Renaud <br/><br/>
Death and Psychic Experiences-Teenage Solutions Using the Paranormal 

 -  2010.<br/>							 
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<br/><br/> Research clearly demonstrates that many teenagers are interested in paranormal phenomena both theoretically, and in terms of experiences and practices. The latter is something becoming quite commonplace. The main self-reported motives of teenagers is curiosity and boredom (Mischo, 1991), but this phenomenon can also imply deeper issues including facing death. Spiritualist and occult practices can be a modality of exploration of the limits of the symbolic and of the effects of the signifier (Le Maléfan, 2008). This production of death can also appear, paradoxically, as one form of the fantasies of immortality at puberty described by Philippe Gutton (1993). This fantasy can develop to become a temporary solution to enacting mourning or a trauma. We will attempt to show, through clinical cases, how adolescence, thought as a logical time close to borderline states, can subjectivate death, this “absolute master,” by “psychic experiences,” i.e. related to practices cultivated for more than a century by psychic sciences and spiritualism.