Psychological development rely on biological stability until puberty, period in which a sensorial “whirldwind” arises bringing to pre-adolescents the expected discomfort in the face of something unknown. These new sensations, according to Dias:
“(…) start as a pervasive tension focus that spreads throughout the body. The child notices that there is something weird going on and their sensations and feelings have been changing. At the beginning, they manifest themselves as restlessness, oscillating humor (with occasional anger explosions), fear crises, awkwardness that gradually turn into sexual attraction or arousal” (Dias, 2000. p83)
In other words, children start to have sexual energy discharged as eroticized behaviors. Psychic energy will mostly be discharged as sexuality, from that time on. The abilities to act in the world (masculine drive) and to introject facilitating or inhibitory atmospheres (feminine drive) will be added by the ability to imitate behaviors. Hence, through introjecting and imitating identity models- feminine and masculine ones- and through sexual energy discharge, they turn into sexually active individuals. Sexual identity unfolds in a context of: 1) New “needs” of adolescents’ bodies , 2) their pre-existing models, 3) cultural influences that come from their communities of belonging – school, church, web groups, etc. The combination of these three aspects defines conditions for sexual identity development. These “ex kids” start to feel identified with people who share the same sex/gender behaviors and to mirror behaviors/ performances from adults they aspire to become. They also start to eroticize their behaviors, which means mobilizing and discharging sexual desire towards objects of desire. Therefore, sexual energy is produced by sexual hormones. Sexual Identity, in turn, is their sexual energy discharging channel. It is not just a result of the need for sexual energy discharge. It is a result of a complex and subjective process. And how are sexuality and Sexual Identity intertwined in order to reach sexual maturity? The three constitutive aspects of Sexual Identity: pre-existing feminine and masculine models (parental ones), new references that start to be incorporated from puberty on and cultural influences offer the tools to understand adolescence as a peculiar stage of development and of paramount relevance for adults’ emotional growth.
To be continued in the next post
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