Based on multiple interventions as a psychoanalytic psychiatrist in a reinforced educational center in France, this article aims to analyze certain psychic and identity issues that are at play in adolescents. More specifically, we will describe the various components of the verbal jousting that often occurs in the relationship between clinicians and adolescents, particularly when they come from immigrant backgrounds and have already committed violent offenses. At first glance, it seems indeed difficult to translate the ordinary therapeutic experience with such adolescents. The clinician must pay close attention to their history, which usually includes early relational trauma, neglect and violence. Hence, for such teenagers, the outside appears more protective than the interior. In order to make room for thought and elaboration, it is necessary to make them feel secure by recognizing their initial mistrust, and, in the light of the works of Winnicott and Bion, by inciting curiosity and co-creativity.