Les effets psychologiques du délaissement parental chez l’enfant placé en famille d’accueil

Abstract

Introduction

This work is part of an action-research project in clinical psychology. It focuses on the psychological effects of parental abandonment on foster children. The main objective is to contribute to the understanding of this phenomenon by proposing a psychological definition of parental abandonment.

Methodology

The methodology was based on a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach. Twenty-two subjects were interviewed. Two clinical groups were created. Group 1 involved children who no longer had an obvious relationship with their birth parents (n = 11). Group 2 consisted of children who had lost interest in their parents. (n = 11). The tools used were the Complete History Cards (CCH), a variation of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) with the Edicode, projective tests (a 5-item test, CAT, TAT, ESM, imaginary genogram) and semi-structured clinical research interviews.

Results

The results highlight the expression of psychic trauma and the manifestation of a disorganized attachment pattern. In terms of psychopathological processes, we observed the predominant expression of depressive equivalents and antidepressive struggles on a manic side, archaic anxieties and the primacy of primary processes with intense recourse to functional cleavage. In terms of operating internal models and parental imagos, we note an over-representation of foster care families compared to birth families.

Analysis

These results confirm our initial hypotheses in terms of the quest for origins, the primitive scene, the existence of several family romances, and the question of dual belonging to alternative attachment figures by compensation between filiations and affiliations.

Discussion

Based on our analysis of the results, we propose a psychological definition of parental abandonment, which we believe covers three legal-clinical realities in terms of the psychopathology of parental impediment: real abandonment, parental psychic abandonment and abandonment by discontinuity.