Current developments in French ethnopsychoanalysis

Transcult Psychiatry. 2011 Jul;48(3):205-27. doi: 10.1177/1363461511402868.

Abstract

French ethnopsychoanalytic approaches to therapy with immigrants combine the psychoanalytical interest in subjectivity with a specific concern for cultural factors and with the role migration plays as a crucial life event. Recent approaches consider culture as profoundly hybrid and use the notions of ''métissage'' and ''décentrage'' as central concepts. This article presents extracts from a qualitative study of ethnopsychoanalytic therapies with immigrant families. The authors argue that the ethnopsychoanalytic approach helps to open new ways of considering cultural hybridity and create a third space where experiences ''from the margins'' may be verbalized.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Anthropology, Cultural
  • Child Development / physiology
  • Child, Preschool
  • Emigrants and Immigrants / psychology*
  • Ethnopsychology / trends*
  • Family Therapy / trends
  • Female
  • France / ethnology
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mali / ethnology
  • Paris / ethnology
  • Psychoanalysis / trends*