Commentary on Patrizio Campanile's “I Had Twenty-Five Piercings and Pink Hair When…”

Anthropology teaches us that across cultures the physiological changes and imperatives that characterize adolescence must be accommodated, and have been in a variety of ways. Many pre-industrial cultures had rituals that allowed the child to assume his or her adult role with a far speedier trajectory than is now the case in the Western world. I mention anthropology to remind us that all things are culturally contextual, including our ways of understanding development, socialization, and psychic transformation.

In psychoanalysis, we also have an abundance of “subcultures” that too often have been familiar only to the natives of each particular group. Of course, I refer to theoretical pluralism both in the United States and elsewhere in the world. The publication of Campanile's engaging article in this American journal is a useful contribution to building cross-cultural bridges. In what follows, I will attempt some further construction along these lines in looking at the case material.

Campanile's paper is concerned with the psychic strains and conflicts often encountered in successfully navigating the challenges of attaining adolescence. His main clinical presentation is a dramatic description of a pubescent 12-year-old girl entangled in the arduous task of leaving childhood and entering young adulthood. We can picture her struggling between taking steps forward and backward, but finally coming to