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.