Bipolar troubles, thus named in contemporary international classifications, make us think about the secular heritage of psychoanalytic figures of melancholia. The psychoanalytic models of reference are briefly recalled. This article deals with the extensions of research on the evolution of hospitalized adolescents after a severe mood episode of the manic or mixed type. An initial observation reveals the plurality of psychopathological functioning modalities underlying bipolar troubles, as shown through analyses of the responses to Rorschach and TAT tests carried out at the moment of the episode in question. We propose to compare the projective protocols of adolescents presenting borderline functioning modalities to those with psychotic ones. We study the psychic adjustments liable to be mobilized in each group to discover their common points and their specificities, particularly concerning the mobilization of melancholic and manic reactions. Our study focuses more specifically on the different forms of treatment of object loss, and their application, which may or may not differ depending on the psychopathological make-up of the adolescent (borderline or psychotic): can melancholic or manic motions be understood as psychic solutions enabling the subject to cope with the pain of object loss, even at high psychic cost? Can psychodynamic approach based on Freudian and post-Freudian psychoanalytic models of melancholia and mania be applied to the treatment of mood disorders? Thus, melancholic and manic motion can be paradoxically understood as attempt to restart libidinal motion and liaison drive, even if variably efficient to face self-destroying threat.