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SUMMARYMental health workers develop a solid understanding of social phenomenon, which gives them direction and on which they are able to base their interventions. This is what the authors call the "implicit sociology" ("sociologie implicite") of workers. The article describes the principal elements of this special knowledge through information gathered from workers in clinical environments, private practice and "alternative" organizations. The authors focus on the idea workers make of health/mental handicaps, of their clientele, of their involvement, of the organizational and societal context of their work, of their "role" in society. Finally, the authors show how a sociological approach can help improve one's understanding of how to deal with mental health.

AbstractThis paper introduces the central role of countertransference reactions in the treatment of borderline patients in transference focused psychotherapy developed by Otto F. Kernberg. The Countertransference Rating System is presented to illustrate the diversity of the therapist's mental activities involved in his attempts to process and use reactions call to mind by borderline patient. A clinical example is presented as such as empirical evidence in support of the usefulness of the CRS and of the importance of processing countertransference reactions.

SUMMARYThe Clinique des Jeunes St-Denis was founded in 1977 to provide complete medical and psychosocial services to young clients in matters of sexuality. The work assumed by a multi-disciplinary team has provided its members with an opportunity for growth and allowed them to investigate the different aspects of their work load. The actual clinical needs and the effective treatment are discussed : abortion, incest, sexually transmitted diseases, etc. Groups are formed in order to perceive the adolescent as a whole and not only its sexual dimension ; and a concern for preventive action is always present. A research on these matters has been initiated.

AbstractThis article analyses an intercultural clinical practice in a legal setting from an anthropological and psychoanalytical perspective, demonstrating necessary reorganizations inherent to the framework. The culture of the new country and its founding myth being implicit to the judicial framework, the professional intervening introduces psychoanalytical references particularly totemic principles and the symbolic father by making genealogy, a universal object of transmission as guarantee of fundamental taboos of humanity. The metacultural perspective in this approach integrates ethnopsychoanalytical principles put forth by Devereux as well as the method although this latter has been adapted to the framework. This approach allows to re-question Devereux's ethnopsychoanalytical principles by opening the debate on the perspective of a psychoanalytical as well as psychiatric

AbstractReflective functioning is a relatively new concept which broadly speaking, refers to the capacity to interpret human behaviours and interpersonal reactions in terms of underlying intentions and mental state motivations. This capacity is particularly important in the regulation of affects and the management of challenging interpersonal relations. In comparison to dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT) and supportive therapies, transference focused psychotherapy (TFP) has been shown to have unique advantages in terms of producing improvements in RF of borderline patients. In the present article, we propose a developmental perspective for understanding how TFP produces these changes in RF. Using this perspective, we identify a number of therapeutic mechanisms through which TFP facilitate the development of RF and specifically transference interpretations.

Setting up therapeutic theatre sessions at the Point G psychiatric hospital of Bamako (Mali) brings up psychological and ethnological questions. With this double point of view, we analyse the use of traditional theatre (koteba) in a hospital context. By describing the lay out of the project and various sessions, we explain how we used the recurring reference to the village as a metaphorical area but also as a relational system. This reference can help better understand what is at stake in this kind of therapeutic theatre. The therapeutic relationship is indeed part of the group framework and may refer to relations of powers, specific to the Malian context. The reference to the village acts as an interface between care and stage drama, between ethnopsychiatry and ethnotheatre, and can help better understand the potential relational effectiveness of such a therapeutic lay out.

Keywords: Bondaz, Jeannet, Mali, ethnopsychiatrie, théâtre thérapeutique, koteba, mise en scène, village, Bondaz, Jeannet, Mali, Ethnopsychiatry, Therapeutic Theatre, Koteba, Stage Drama, Village, Bondaz, Jeannet, Mali, etnopsiquiatría, teatro terapéutico, koteba, puesta en escena, aldea

Complicated grief is now a recognized clinical entity for adults. However, where children are concerned, it remains a notion particularly difficult to grasp, as is the case with other complications of grief. In this article, we examine the specificities of grief in children. Then, we address complicated grief in children before discussing the prospects of possible care for these children and their loved ones in specific contexts of complicated grief.

Keywords: deuil, deuil compliqué, enfant, mort, psychothérapie, famille, grief, complicated grief, children, death, therapy, family, duelo, duelo complicado, niño, muerte, psicoterapia, familia

Torture violently sets the victim face to face with his or her physical and symbolic death, which is entirely controlled by an ill-intended other. Its trueobjective is the person's desubjectification, accomplished by the threat of destroying the victim's body or by the severing of the ties linking the victim to the group to which she or he identifies. Because the fright and the pain brought about by torture overwhelms the person's ability to code the event, the experience is indescribable. The unspeakable character of torture-driven trauma often keeps the victim under the torturer's influence, keeping him or her from re-integrating in society as a full subject. However, narrative-constructing and narrative transmission can initiate a form of bereavement of the tortured self and thus participate in the victim's mental reconfiguration which, in turn, can facilitate his or her reintegration into the world as a subject.

Keywords: torture, désubjectivation, mise en récit de traumatisme, deuil, torture, desubjectification, trauma narrative, grief, tortura, desubjetivación, narración del trauma, duelo

In Western societies, the use of psychotropic substances, becoming «psychiatric medications», constitutes the central mechanism for facing a wide array of painful psychic and social experiences. This paper aims to understand the role played by psychopharmacological treatment in the lives of people who frequent the psychiatric services network. It does this through a cross-sectional analysis of two studies that, though they had their own objectives, dealt with the users' relationships to psychotropic drugs. The idea is to grasp the «within» — in other words, to understand the impact of psychopharmacology in peoples' lives, staying as close as possible to their experiences and strategies. It is also essential to understand the socio-cultural conditions, constraints and systemic effects that contribute to the social construction of these experiences. The analysis highlights the significant constraints imposed upon people using the psychiatric services system when it orients its practices primarily towards monitoring compliance with pharmacological prescriptions.

Keywords: analyse socioculturelle des pratiques en santé mentale, pratiques en santé mentale, psychotropes, point de vue des usagers, socio-cultural analysis of mental health practices, psychotropic medications, point of view of users, análisis sociocultural de las prácticas en salud mental, psicofarmacología, perspectiva de los usuarios