Gesine Sturm

Current developments in French ethnopsychoanalysis

French ethnopsychoanalytic approaches to therapy with immigrants combine the psychoanalytical interest in subjectivity with a specific concern for cultural factors and with the role migration plays as a crucial life event. Recent approaches consider culture as profoundly hybrid and use the notions of ‘‘métissage’’ and ‘‘décentrage’’ as central concepts. This article presents extracts from a qualitative study of ethnopsychoanalytic therapies with immigrant families. The authors argue that the ethnopsychoanalytic approach helps to open new ways of considering cultural hybridity and create a third space where experiences ‘‘from the margins’’ may be verbalized.

COMMENT ACCUEILLIR ET SOIGNER LES MINEURS ISOLÉS ÉTRANGERS ?: Une approche transculturelle

Les problematiques des jeunes isoles etrangers que nous recevons dans les Maisons des Adolescents sont complexes et font l’objet de peu de travaux en sante mentale. Ces adolescents doivent traverser seuls la periode de construction identitaire qu’est l’adolescence et ont souvent vecu des traumatismes repetes et des deuils multiples. Il parait donc pertinent d’offrir a ces jeunes un espace, comme celui des consultations transculturelles, qui leur permette de s’appuyer sur leur langue maternelle, leurs representations culturelles, et qui tienne compte du vecu pre, per et post-migratoire de chaque adolescent pour relancer une dynamique processuelle dans sa construction identitaire.Adolescence, 2012, 30, 2, 421-432.

Transcultural Clinical Work with Immigrants, Asylum Seekers and Refugees at Avicenne Hospital, France

This article presents and critically analyses an approach that is part of a specific context of health care ideologies and services in France: the ethnopsychoanalytic consultations that are practised at the Avicenne Hospital. It is one of the few places where a specific approach for immigrant clients is offered in a university hospital. We give some background information both on the history of the hospital and on the ethnopsychiatric consultation. We then discuss some of the basic principles of the French ethnopsychoanalytic approach, and describe the work in a multicultural group setting. We also give some information about the indications for this kind of therapy, on the population served and on the way the transcultural consultation co‐operates with other services. A short case presentation will illustrate the description of the French ethnopsychoanalytical approach and lead to a critical conclusion analysing the strengths and weaknesses of this model.

Adapting services to the needs of children and families with complex migration experiences: The Toulouse University Hospital’s intercultural consultation

This article presents the recently created intercultural consultation at the Medical and Psychological Health Care Service (CMP) of the University Hospital la Grave at Toulouse. The approach of the intercultural consultation was elaborated in response to the increasing diversity of children and families using the service in Toulouse. It is also based on local research that indicates the difficulties service providers encounter when trying to establish a solid therapeutic alliance with families with complex migration backgrounds who accumulate different disadvantaging factors. The intercultural consultation adapts existing models of culture-sensitive consultations in child mental health care in France and Canada to the local context in Toulouse. We describe the underlying principles of the intercultural consultation work, the therapeutic and mediation techniques used, and the way the work is integrated into the global service provision of the CMP. The process is illustrated with a case study followed by a discussion of the innovations.