2011
Cairn
Olivier Ralet, « Enfants en exil, traumatisme et ethnopsy », Les Politiques Sociales, ID : 10670/1.8jab70
In cross-cultural social work practice as it refers to the reception of minors from abroad who have undergone traumas either in their country of origin or in the course of their departure, our psycho-social approach can be strengthened by adopting ways of thinking and doing that belong to the field of ethno-psychiatry. This helps us to remember, for example, that the migrant, however young she or he may be, always remains the best expert on his or her own situation. We are then able to see the trauma as the persistence in time of a “psychological assault” on the “matrix of meanings” constituted by the culture of origin, and so be able to treat the trauma by working with the sufferers to give sense to their experiences. This approach focuses attention on the measures we adopt and helps to work out new ones, brings out the importance of the groups clients belong too (and the possible dangers), considers shared systems of thought as distinct from beliefs, and permits the decoding of these systems to encourage a successful readjustment : all this by working with the persons concerned and not on their behalf.