Goulois, David <br/><br/>
Mother-to-child Transmission Issues in Teenage Mothers in the Reunion 

 -  2014.<br/>							 
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<br/><br/> Teenage pregnancies on Reunion Island are four times higher than in metropolitan France. This article delves into an ethno-psychoanalytical study on six families, focusing on the impact of these maternities on the psychic functioning of the children resulting from these pregnancies. It transpires that across the generations, the mother-child relationship is fusional, as a result of an anxiety of abandonment and a strong maternal emotional need. The child develops a feeling of psychic insecurity and shows symptoms of depression and anxiety. It would also appear that mother and child possess a false self, or at least a lack of spontaneity and an emotional immaturity that in the child is manifested by withdrawal or, conversely, megalomaniac tendencies. The specific historic and cultural aspects of the Reunion are investigated as perhaps providing an explanation for the scale of the phenomenon.