“Fighting Exclusion” and rebuilding a valid relationship with others.

Abstract

My article draws on my experience as a clinician. Today, I am retired and freed from my duties at the Psychiatric Hospital and the University of Paris 10-Nanterre. I continue my work as a psychoanalyst in private. Until a few years ago, I worked as a clinical psychologist at the Ville-Evrard psychiatric hospital in the 93 department. There, I joined the work of a "psychiatry-precarity" unit, a system comprising teams visiting refugee reception centers at the request of the DASS (Direction de l'Action Sanitaire et Sociale) or neighboring municipalities. I also collaborated in the past with the SAMU social de Paris and its "psych" patrol for the so-called "homeless" (SDF) in serious mental turmoil (including moments of delirium of organ denial, melancholic collapses treated and poorly hidden by long periods of alcoholic intoxication, explosive and disarmed quarrels, pathetic fracas preluding dizzying depressions). These two experiences made me meet many people living in great psychological suffering, sometimes in "madness" - this extremely equivocal term - who lived on the streets. Finally, during my missions conducted by Samu Social International in West Africa and Congo with the aim of creating and sustaining field teams made up of doctors, educators, and clinical psychologists, I had many encounters with adolescents on the move, fleeing grueling social conditions, violent families, and deadly political situations, especially for minors, children, and adolescents who experienced wars in which they were either the actors, the victims, or, most often, both.