The Suffering of Protected Adolescents Struggling with a Paradoxical Filiation
Type de matériel :
29
Child Welfare Services have difficulty in providing care adapted to adolescents presenting a high risk of psychopathology and other behavioral disorders/symptoms. These adolescents have faced numerous difficulties during their residencies in foster families, shelters, and hostels. It has not been possible for them to settle in the above-mentioned places as they were not sufficiently adapted to their conflictual situation/problems. The analysis is based on two brief clinical situations of adolescents. They have been staying in a recently opened foster home that serves a limited number of adolescents who have been moving around between different places. This foster home provides an alternative to a hostel placement. The symptoms identified are related to the devastating effect of family toxicity along with repetitive placements. Discontinuity seems to have actively contributed to a paradoxical filiation processing in the adolescents’ identity development. We hereby suggest a multi-perspective re-filiation process split into five axes: holding; permanency; third-party and multi-focalization; and transformation. Adolescence is a phase in life that mobilizes psychological processes along with body transformations that urge the adolescent to question his/her filiation and belonging. Cultural, family, and individual ingredients are to be integrated within the transformation dynamic.
Réseaux sociaux