Un atelier pour sentir et penser; experience clinique auprès d'adolescents à l'infirmerie scolaire

In recent years, research showed that psychological distress in adolescence is expressed through a weakness that affects the body; many young people do not immediately seek help from hospital services or health professionals. They prefer to stay hidden in the shadow for a long time. Nevertheless, we have noticed that the number of young people who go to the School infirmary is increasing. In light of the psychoanalytic corpus, could the School infirmary mean something else than a place for medical care ? The analysis of clinical interviews conducted with suffering adolescents showed that the School infirmary had become “a refuge” which sheltered adolescents from the anxieties of the non-representable puberty. Thus, the psychologist becomes a new object which supports and completes the weak self of the young patient, since it enables him to create a distance between his parents and himself. Sometimes the School infirmary can be turned into a helpful place because the adult is seen as a separate and different subject. Then, the adolescent can start thinking about himself, playing with the affects and the representations before entering a subjective process.