18

Elie, 17 mois, est hospitalisé dans un contexte de retard de croissance staturo-pondérale lié à un refus alimentaire. Lorsque nous le rencontrons, l’enfant semble être transparent et désincarné. Mais c’est justement en se mettant en danger sur le plan de la survie qu’il montre qu’il n’a pas renoncé sur le plan existentiel : le nourrisson ne se fait pas oublier au moment des prises alimentaires, pendant lesquelles il inquiète son entourage par la gravité de son symptôme et la dramatisation de son comportement. Elie va progressivement sentir sa propre existence reconnue dans les émotions que le personnel de pédiatrie lui adresse. Les professionnelles entrent petit à petit en relation avec lui autrement que par son refus alimentaire. Il apprend à réarticuler harmonieusement la question de l’existence à celle de la survie, et à éprouver du plaisir et à faire plaisir à l’autre : la nourriture devient source de ce plaisir et ne condense plus de façon aussi dramatique toutes les formes possibles de relation à l’autre.

Elie, 17 months old, was hospitalized due to developmental delays in his height and weight, related to his refusal to eat. When we became acquainted with him, the baby seemed pale and disembodied. But he demonstrated that he had not renounced his own existence despite the fact that his own survival was at stake : the toddler reminded us of this during his feeding times even as those close to him worried about his symptoms and histrionics. Elie became progressively more aware of his own existence, which he recognized through the emotions and attention of the pediatric personnel, who were gradually able to reach him by engaging him by other means than through his nutrition disorder. The toddler learned to restructure harmoniously his survival and his existence, to experience pleasure and to please others : eating became a pleasurable experience, not only a condensation, in a dramatic way, of all the possible interactions with others.