The author revisits hysterical psychic functioning as an essential reference point. Taking hysterical neurosis as his starting-point, Freud developed the fundamental conceptual tools for understanding the human psyche. Contemporary psychoanalysis has greatly enriched psychoanalytic thought by developing contributions concerning pre-Oedipal, primary and early object-relations. Is it not the case that these fundamental developments have sometimes repressed sexuality a little too much? Is not sexuality still a scandal? Based on the case of an adolescent girl with school phobia, the author demonstrates the validity of Freudian concepts concerning hysterical psychic functioning. Adolescence mobilizes defensive modes of functioning that, when listened to with an understanding of the upheavals caused by the emergence of the instinctual drives, can allow for a hysterization of psychic functioning, or the possibility of (re)discovering the vitality of Eros.