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Drawing on case studies, memories and examples from literature, the author tackles the issue of silliness from the point of view of adoption. Adopted children marked by the trauma of early childhood often find difficulty in expressing their aggressiveness other than in an oblique way by subconscious mistake in the form of « silliness ». The statute of this and its perpetuation depends on the eyes and the reactions of those around put in difficulty by disconcerting behaviour. The therapist’s role is to open the closet in which the protagonists are shutting themselves.