Addressing, understanding and treating conduct disorders in adolescents through psychoanalysis and neuroscience: towards a disappearance of sex-differences

Abstract

Based on our findings showing that female adolescents in resident group homes exhibit externalized disorders at the same rate as male adolescents, explanatory hypotheses are developed from neuroscience (genetics and endocrinology) and from psychoanalysis (psychopathological and environmental approach). In particular, the place of the psychoanalytic approach in improving our understanding of such results is discussed with regard first to the clinical context and then to the research context. This article underlines that both approaches in psychoanalysis and neuroscience can, and maybe have to/should, coexist in child psychiatry.