Our experience in adolescent homes, Maisons des adolescents (MDA), has enabled us to theorize the practice in a multidisciplinary setting. This practice, called « taking care », involves a number of paradoxes, which are considered risks for failure, but which administrations, services and professionals must nevertheless use to help the most troubled adolescents.
Adolescence, 2014, 32, 1, 111-127.
At the « Maison des Adolescents » de Bobigny, Casita, the reception process is a central element of the treatment setting. Carried out by a pluridisciplinary duo of staff members, who ensure a plurality of readings of the adolescent’s suffering, it is carried out in several appointments, generally over the course of a few weeks. Using a clinical vignette, we will try to show the fundamental functions of the procedural work of receiving, both as an evaluation of the request for treatment, but also as a moment of elaboration before any orientation towards treatment
From the various reception modalities in the adolescents units (« Maisons des Adolescents »), the authors propose to define a reception position that partakes of the ethics of a clinical approach. They stress how the request for treatment the « Maisons des Adolescents » have to be heard. It seems essential to differentiate between the application made by the youth himself and the request made by the family and social circle. They also stress the fact of taking the situation at face value in order to decrypt the contents of the application, both manifest and latent. This position is expected to make a symbolic break and relocate references regarding the difference between the sexes and generations. Emphasis is placed on the notion of reference, which, coupled with a position of auxiliary ego, is likely to reintroduce a third party. This reception position cannot be conceived without job training of the multidisciplinary teams who should establish a clinic where the unknown, to which everyone is subject, can be shared.