For several years, the author has been conducting ethnopsychiatric therapies with migrant parents and their babies (families coming from black Africa, the Maghreb, South-East Asia...). This psychotherapeutic work is based on the ethnopsychoanalytical theory, i.e. the utilization of psychoanalysis and anthropology in a compulsory but not simultaneous way. It develops in the framework of a complex setting, i.e. the utilization of a group of polyglot therapists of psychoanalytical training, the exploration of the cultural representations which structures the distress of the family, the work with the enlarged family, the analysis of the cultural counter-attitudes of the therapists. The clinical research carried on within this setting has brought to light three types of pertinent cultural representations: the ontological representations (nature of the child), the etiological theories (where does the dysfunctioning come from, what is its sense?) and the logics of the traditional therapies (what would be the approach in the country concerned in front of such a distress?). The integration of these representations in our psychoanalytical work forces us to de-center ourselves, to complexify our handling methods and to be inventive.

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anthropology distress syndrome normal human newborn Conference Paper psychoanalysis mother child relation human adult family migration Child