Rahmeth Radjack

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.

[The parents' experience of school refusal in adolescence].

While todays society places considerable importance on schooling and performances, school absenteeism is currently very high. One of the causes is anxiety-based school refusal. This phenomenon affects the adolescent but also has an impact on their family. Exploring the experience of the parents of teenagers presenting anxiety-based school refusal enables these families to be given better support.

Le dessin, support de soins aux mineurs isolés étrangers

Supporting unaccompanied foreign minors requires a different clinical approach. These youngsters must be given individualised support to help them make the transition from exile and loss, to an existence as an individual, yet still a son or daughter. The drawing, as a transcultural and atemporal imprint, constitutes a tool enabling these young people to bring to the surface their unconscious thought processes, to exist and to come into being with dignity.

Initier un suivi psychiatrique chez les jeunes isolés étrangers

The various traumatic events experienced by young isolated foreigners can weaken them psychologically and cause psychiatric decompensation. A qualitative study, carried out by the Maison de Solenn and the Avicenne hospital, aimed to provide better understanding of the conditions for initiating psychiatric care with these adolescents. The different results show that this type of care for these young migrants must be cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary.

Groupe de parole pour adolescents hospitalisés : un appui pour grandir

The theme of growing up is addressed through the presentation of the support group for around twenty hospitalised adolescents at the Maison de Solenn. In this weekly group, the subjects discussed are diverse in terms of their content and tone, depending on the atmosphere or changes: sharing daily life in hospital, the tastes and ideas of each participant, issues related to adolescence, to topics bordering on the philosophical or existential. The analysis of the themes discussed over the course of a year revealed that many provide the basis for thinking about the process of separation/individuation.

Regards croisés entre systèmes éducatifs lors d’une expertise transculturelle

In the framework of cross-cultural assessments, the nursing team is instructed by the family court judge to provide a clinical assessment taking into account the cultural dimension of the young person concerned. The aim is also to define appropriate psychoeducational support for certain migrant families, notably those describing a brutal confrontation between the educational worlds of here and elsewhere. The situation of a Togolese family, whose adolescent daughter is taken into care due to a practice judged to be abuse in France, is analysed in order to provide some keys to understanding and to discuss the anthropological aspects relevant to the educational and psychological care.

Vulnérabilités adolescentes et radicalisation

Radicalisation resonates with the psychological vulnerabilities of adolescents. The ups and downs encountered as they attempt to construct their identity and their need to dominate favour the destructive nature of young people lacking a sense of filiation and belonging. An adolescents engagement corresponds to a search for limits, with an adherence to religious values and to a group to establish self-esteem. Subjectification, authorising the adolescent to separate themselves from their parents and their values through a period of crisis must be supported.

The Transmission of Trauma from Mother to Infant: Radioactive Residues and Counter-Transference in the Case of a Haitian Mother and Her Two-Year-Old Son*

ABSTRACT Close observation of the interactions between a traumatised mother and her infant son provides information on the modes of transmission of psychic trauma in the mother–infant dyad. Following the presentation of a current literature review on the theme, the subject of “radioactive residue” and counter-transference in the transmission of psychic trauma from mother to infant will be illustrated through a clinical case study that focuses on a Haitian mother and her two-year-old infant son who has been referred to a “transitional care nursery” in urban Paris. The encounter with this mother–infant dyad is analysed through observing the quality of the interactions that take place between the mother and infant in order to determine how a particularly traumatic narrative impacts the mother–infant relationship, in addition to relations with the clinician. Mother and infant respond to one another through the emission and reception of “radioactive residues” as hypothesized by Gampel. This clinical case study shows that there is a need to consider transcultural factors and collective experience and history when analysing traumatic events. Additionally, the case study shows that counter-transference can be an effective clinical tool for gaining access to an infants experience as the recipient of a traumatic narrative.