This paper aims to assess the mobilizing motivations of the adolescent's behavior in conflict with the law, adopting the interactive concept of infringement. Individual and semi-structured interviews were conducted with male adolescents deprived of freedom. The obtained contents were organized into thematic groups, analyzed phenomenologically, and articulated to the underlying motivations. The results revealed a living ambivalence that corrupts the subjectivities and fragments the intersubjective relationships, forging existential distress. This distress is expressed as actions against himself and the society. Attention is called to the need for psychosocial interventions that consider the problem not only from the symbolic and cultural determinism that engender it, but that also includes the adolescents´ search for answers to their humanistic-existential suffering.
adolescents in conflict with the law; phenomenology; motivation; mental suffering
