Elena Bordin
ICP Institute of Constructivist Psychology, Padua, Italy.
Giordano Bertolazzi
ICP Institute of Constructivist Psychology, Padua, Italy.
Communication presented at the 8th European Congress on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology and XXX Congress of SEPYPNA, which under the title «Psychological development, psychopathology and human relations today: interaction between the biological and the social aspects» took place in Bilbao on April 26, 27 and 28, 2018.
ABSTRACT
Does to say that teenagers are ruled by hormones, incapable of considering the consequences of unprotected sex, help us understand them better? What did behaving in risky ways, while being informed on healthy sexual behaviours, mean to their sexuality?
Considering adolescence as a process rather than a developmental stage, this work, through
Personal Construct Psychology, will present adolescents as inquiring men, with the aim of finding new constructions of Self, including in the field of sexuality. In this field, unsafe sexual behaviours can be understood as elaborative attempts to position themselves in relationships.
Such a proposal can lay the foundations for alternative prevention projects and sex education
courses, in which the idea of right and wrong behaviour gives way to one of elaborate choice.
Key words: Personal Construct Psychology, adolescent sexuality, risk-taking behaviour, elaborative choice.