By means of some statistics, this article will first present the social and socio-economic components of harragas, young North African migrants who try to reach the shores of Europe. Secondly, a study of their families and their environment will attempt to identify the factors leading to these individual journeys, with emphasis on the notions of risk-taking and quest for self.
Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°3, pp. 699-709.
Beginning with a reflection on contemporary cultural mixing, the author will analyze this issue as it relates to second-generation immigrant children and their parents. Using some clinical examples of children and their parents received in a Pschological Service for immigrants, she reflects upon the trauma of migration and on the non-elaborated secrets which are passed down to the next generation. Also she raises the question of cultural counter-transference, a central factor in preventing fallout within the therapeutic relation, and analyzes the creative potential of second generation adolescents.
Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°3, pp. 677-697.
Couldn’t adolescence be a metaphor for « migration », with the world of childhood as the native country and adult world the promised land ? Should not the various « passages » then be examined from a topological perspective ?
Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°3, pp. 673-676.
This article suggests that the them of migration be considered as a metaphor for an interior psychical operation : the subjectalizing differentiation from the primary objects, which play a decisive role in adolescence. The issue of the subject is treated within a dialogue with sociologists, anthropologists, historians and philosophers, to the point of envisioning a plural subject open to the diversity of libidinal economies – characterized by the omnipresence of psychical bisexuality and infantile sexuality, here related to gender theory.
Migration introduces one to mixing – ethnic, cultural, but also psychical. A clinical example of adolescent psychical disorder generating elaboration and symbolization of interior strangeness illustrates the hypothesis : we are all migrants.
Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°3, pp. 661-672.
In this article we will attempt to pinpoint some particularities of the psychical movements present in isolated foreign minors, especially the experience of their psychotherapeutic treatment, as well as their educational program. The description of their placement (in this case, in an education-oriented home) will help us investigate several clinical manifestations requiring a reading of the unconscious issues that might be linked to the impact of the trauma of exile. We will see how, in the wake of exile, certain defenses and transference movements are established, implying, among other things, profound reordering of the object relation with parental imagos.
Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°3, pp. 651-660.
Plans for isolated foreign minors are located at the crossroads where the migratory imagination, the person’s or family’s dreams of the future and the personalized plan constructed with the help of educators come together. Very often, these are opposed to a practice wherein adaptation to reality is supposed to be accomplished by giving up dreams viewed as « utopian ». Using an anthropological study involving twenty young isolated foreign minors (MIE) cared for in Socially Oriented Children’s Centers (MECS) in the Aquitaine region, and D. W. Winnicott’s concept of potential space, this article suggests a different way of thinking about the construction of projects for these youngsters, one which considers their dreams for the future as tools in caring for them.
Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°3, pp. 633-649.
With adolescents presenting acute psychiatric disorders, and who are also isolated and foreign-born, doubts about the diagnosis are frequent, with the risk of diagnostic error – and inadequate care – as well of over-diagnosis of psychotic disorders as opposed to depression or post-traumatic syndrome. The course of the treatment of Lila, a sixteen year-old adolescent from Rwanda, illustrates the problematic of diagnostic erros or misdiagnosis which can be reduced by recourse to studies on diagnostic error and a transcultural approach to treatment.
Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°3, pp. 625-632.
Though the exepriences of isolated foreign youths are varied and each has his or her particular history, these adolescents have some psychopathological problems in common. A considerable number of these young people present clinical symptoms of trance or possession, called DTD (dissociative trance disorder) in the DSM IV. Symptoms of trance and possession are probably under-diagnosed in western countries because of cultural bias and an insufficient understanding of dissociative disorders. Patients who present these symptoms are often subject to diagnostic errors, especially diagnoses of psychosis or borderline states, leading to treatments that can aggravate symptoms. These symptoms have multiple functions in isolated foreign youths and should be analyzed in view of the specific stage of development which is adolescence, especially its issues of identity construction. In order to gain a better understanding of the subjective experience of these young people, it is necessary that the therapeutic setting take into account the transcultural dimension and pre-, peri-, and post-migratory issues. We will bring our hypotheses to bear on a review of the psychoanalytic literature and clinical observations.
Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°3, pp. 613-623.
This article shows that it is possible to evaluate in adults between seventy-six and eighty years of age the psychical effects of traumatic events experienced over sixty years ago. Here we present the constructive processes of an adolescent Jewish girl in France between 1940 and 1946. In addition to being robbed of her adolescence, the clinical situation shows psychopathological disorders linked to cumulative traumas : a thwarted adulthood, difficulty becoming a mother, troubled marital and maternal relations and a ponderous silence. Retirement permits the liberation she has been waiting for since 1945, in particular through group acknowledgement and the process of writing.
Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°3, pp. 601-612.
In Brazil between 2002 and 2010, more than 230 000 young people between the ages of 15 and 25 were murdered. This article attempts to analyze the vicissitudes of subjective construction of Brazilian adolescents living in poverty, social anomie and violence. Starting with the creation of a group clinical set-up, psychoanalytically oriented conversation groups conducted with adolescents at school, the author constructed the following hypothesis : given the violent disqualification of their life and the total absence of any prospect of even minimal inscription in a link indicative of phallic participation in the social field, some youngsters turn violence into their own fiction and a way of forging a social link. Using a fragment of one case, the author also tries to give an idea of the method used in conducting these conversation groups.
Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°3, pp. 589-600.