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Ethnopsychiatry Cross-Cultural Psychology Anthropology

The book discusses the concept of child vulnerability brought out during a three years stay as a psychologist in New-Caledonia in both field of anthropology and psychology. In the clinical work with children and families at the Loyalty Islands of Mare and Ouvea, therapeutic work and theorisation try to put together anthropological, psychanalytic, historical and sociological references in order to understand the family accounts and representations expressed by them concerning the suffering child. The obstacles bound to cultural differences are systematically worked out by a contextualisation taking in account history, colonisation, missionary influences, health assistance and colonial psychiatry and some organisational aspects of kanak society. All these points would take in consideration stakes within Kanak society from the Loyalty Islands so that the approaches would not be limite by culture or alterity. The therapeutic work, inquiry and research are mainly attached to the familiy narratives which emphasize their interpretations toward disturbances, adversity, misfortune and at the same time open the way to questions about the family and the clan history. Family narratives and representations are not fixed and their transformation capacities are a therapeutic factor. The idea of child vulnerability command attention progressively, his body and his psychic seem to reflect social conflicts through generations and reactualize problems without solutions. The making of ancestors, gods, curse and sorcery assaults are the main vectors of disorder or of social regulation.

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