This paper contrasts two aspects of the adolescent's sojourn in the metaphorical landscape of the borderland. Either this ‘dance with death’ can prove life-affirming and serve individuation as the intensity of being poised on the cusp between life and death negates numbing dissociation, or it can spiral into madness and suicide when the adolescent gets trapped in a mimetic hall of mirrors. This paper considers both the oscillations between mimesis and alterity, and how culture and cultural complexes may define expressions of distress. It concludes with the question of whether one can-and whether one should-make sense of the demons from the other side; and whether they are psychotic, pseudo-psychotic or dissociative manifestations as they emerge during the course of therapy.