Delphine Jacobs (Psychiatre infanto-juvénile, Chef de clinique, Professeur) , Jean Steyaert (Psychiatre infanto-juvénile, Chef de clinique, Professeur) , Kris Dierickx (Ethicien, Professeur ordinaire) , Kristien Hens (Ethicien, Professeur de recherche)
{"title":"The diagnosis of Autism spectrum disorder in young children: A clinical-ethical study of parents' and physicians' experiences","authors":"Delphine Jacobs (Psychiatre infanto-juvénile, Chef de clinique, Professeur) , Jean Steyaert (Psychiatre infanto-juvénile, Chef de clinique, Professeur) , Kris Dierickx (Ethicien, Professeur ordinaire) , Kristien Hens (Ethicien, Professeur de recherche)","doi":"10.1016/j.evopsy.2025.06.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evopsy.2025.06.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Goal</h3><div>After three quarters of a century of research and clinical experience, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) turns out to be surprisingly heterogeneous in its presentations, causes and cognitive mechanisms. In light of the miscellaneous nature of this diagnosis, it is unclear how the array of (predominantly “basic”) research findings on ASD is translated into information that is meaningful and valuable to parents and clinicians. Few studies are dedicated to detect the views and experiences of an ASD diagnosis of a child by parents and clinicians, and make an ethical reflection on their personal perspectives. An ethical reflection on the results of the empirical studies with parents and physicians lead to the formulation of clinical-ethical considerations towards both policy makers and clinicians concerning the diagnostic care related to ASD in young children.</div></div><div><h3>Method</h3><div>We conducted in-depth interviews on how parents and physicians view and experience a young child's ASD diagnosis. Parents were queried longitudinally: before the start of the diagnostic ASD assessment, right after the feedback session at the end of the assessment, and 12 months later. The interviews were analysed in Nvivo 11 according to the guidelines of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>The interviewed parents and physicians addressed ‘psycho-relational’ implications of an ASD diagnosis as much as ‘treatment-oriented’ implications. The psycho-relational ‘exculpatory’ effect was particularly appreciated, which consists in both parents and child being able to exonerate themselves with regard to the child's unusual behavior towards both the parents and other adults. The interviewed parents and physicians often came to view the ASD diagnosis in a pragmatic way, in the light of its usefulness for child, parents, and to a lesser extent, professionals. Twelve months after their child got an ASD diagnosis, the interviewed parents mainly had come to value the ASD diagnosis for two reasons: the entitlements it ensured, and them and some others adapting their interactions with the child because of the ASD diagnosis. The interviewed physicians from their side needed an ASD diagnosis to be useful in their clinical practice, particularly to describe the child toward parents and teachers as “he wants to do what is expected from him but is not able to”, and to provide entitlements to adapted care. Clinicians expressed some doubts about the use of and need for a formal diagnosis. They preferred to establish a descriptive and treatment-oriented profile of the child, profile of which an ASD diagnosis was sometimes considered to be a useful part.</div></div><div><h3>Discussion</h3><div>Based on an ethical analysis and reflection, we formulate 4 clinical-ethical considerations in relations to policy, and 4 in relation to the clinic. Towards policy makers, this study's findings sustain an argument for continuity-in-","PeriodicalId":45007,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Psychiatrique","volume":"90 3","pages":"Pages e1-e10"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144779275","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Évaluation factorielle de la version courte de l’Inventaire Flexible de Soupçons Conspirationnistes parmi la population québécoise","authors":"Jacques D. Marleau , Mélissa Généreux","doi":"10.1016/j.evopsy.2025.06.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evopsy.2025.06.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objectives</h3><div>The objective of this study was to evaluate the unidimensionality and certain metric qualities of the short-form Flexible Inventory of Conspiracy Suspicions (FICS) questionnaire administered to the adult population of Quebec.</div></div><div><h3>Materials and methods</h3><div>Two online surveys were carried out in May/June and October 2021 and sampled 11,321 and 10,368 adults residing in the province of Quebec, respectively. In both cases, the short-form of the FICS was used to measure conspiracy suspicions regarding COVID-19 and climate change. Exploratory factor analysis was employed to verify the presence of unidimensional structure. Other indices were also utilized to assess unidimensionality, namely the congruence coefficient and explained common variance. The reliability of the ordinal scores was estimated using standardized alpha and omega coefficients.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>The results of the exploratory factor analysis revealed the presence of a unidimensional structure for the survey data on COVID-19 and climate change conspiracy suspicions collected using the short-form FICS. The values of the congruence coefficient and explained common variance also suggested the presence of unidimensionality. The reliability of the ordinal scores was excellent. These results were similar for the two surveys.</div></div><div><h3>Discussion</h3><div>Overall, the results supported the presence of unidimensional structure in the survey data collected using the COVID-19 version and the climate change version of the short-form FICS, suggesting that the total score can be used to quantify suspicion levels. In addition, the consistency of the findings over the two sampling periods provided additional credibility regarding the relevance of using these scales.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusion</h3><div>The findings highlight the utility of the short-form FICS for assessing conspiracy suspicions among the adult population of Quebec.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45007,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Psychiatrique","volume":"90 3","pages":"Pages 469-479"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144779274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"« Un cerveau d’homme dans un corps de femme » : le problème du sexe « psychique » chez Valentin Magnan et Samuel Pozzi (1911)","authors":"Mathias Winter","doi":"10.1016/j.evopsy.2025.04.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evopsy.2025.04.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objectives</h3><div>This article explores the history of medical and psychological expertise on sex/gender identity by studying the presentation of a case of “hermaphroditism” given by the psychiatrist Valentin Magnan and the surgeon Samuel Pozzi in 1911. It examines how these authors dealt with the discrepancy between the organic and psychosocial dimensions of sex, and it highlights the epistemological and ontological problems that emerge. The article also discusses the continuing echoes in current controversies in gender medicine.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>Our study consists of an in-depth analysis of a presentation given to the French Academy of Medicine regarding a case of <em>“inversion du sens génital chez un pseudo-hermaphrodite féminin</em> [sexual inversion in a female pseudo-hermaphrodite]”. We conducted a detailed analysis of the minutes of the presentation, with the aim of revealing the internal logic, theoretical presuppositions, and metaphysical implications of the clinical judgements made by Magnan and Pozzi. Our primary sources include other texts by Magnan and his contemporaries on homosexuality and “sexual perversion”. Historical and epistemological studies of sex, sexuality, and hermaphroditism are used as secondary sources. Our theoretical framework draws mainly on the epistemological concepts of Kuhn and Bachelard.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>The clinical observations presented by Magnan opposed the patient's organic sex, which was, despite the presence of ambiguous genitalia, unambiguously female given the histology of the patient's gonads (ovaries), and the patient's psychological sex, which was defined as male based on both the patient's sexual attraction to women and the patient's psychological and moral characteristics. The psychiatrist's discourse suggested both symmetry and ontological equivalence between these two dimensions of sex. Overlooking the potential role of early gender assignment, education, and social environment on the patient's self-identification as male, Magnan proposed a naturalistic interpretation of the case, summed up by the expression “a male brain in a female body”. In his earlier writings on “sexual inversion”, Magnan frequently uses the above phrase and the reciprocal “female brain in a male body”, directly echoing Ulrichs’ famous “female soul in a male body”. However, in the context of the 1911 presentation, the use of this phrase appears to reflect an epistemological impasse, which results from the conjunction of the paradigms “hermaphroditism” and “sexual perversion”. In contrast, Pozzi avoided this impasse by proposing a theory that highlights the role of the patient's social environment and beliefs in the development of their sexual instinct and the formation of their identity. This theory draws on the psychological mechanism of suggestion as well as on Darwin's reflections on the domestication of animals. This perspective introduces an ontological hierarchy bet","PeriodicalId":45007,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Psychiatrique","volume":"90 3","pages":"Pages 518-535"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144779278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Florestan Delcourt (Psychologue, Doctorant en Psychologie) , Jacques Auxenfants (Traducteur) , Caroline Gros (Psychanalyste, Docteure en Philosophie)
{"title":"L’Acte de naissance de la phénoménologie psychiatrique – la traduction du Procès-verbal de la 63e assemblée de l’Association Suisse de psychiatrie","authors":"Florestan Delcourt (Psychologue, Doctorant en Psychologie) , Jacques Auxenfants (Traducteur) , Caroline Gros (Psychanalyste, Docteure en Philosophie)","doi":"10.1016/j.evopsy.2025.04.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evopsy.2025.04.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objectives</h3><div>Psychiatric phenomenology is a twentieth-century movement that, after a quiet period, is experiencing a major resurgence in both research and clinical spheres. While people often erroneously cite Karl Jaspers, in 1912, as the source of the movement, initially Husserlian in origin, others, such as Pierre Bovet and Josef Parnas, date its appearance to 1922, at the 63rd Meeting of the <em>Swiss Psychiatric Society</em>. Given that the meeting's minutes did not exist in French, we undertook a translation.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>After retrieving the text from the <em>Swiss Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry</em>, we translated it into French.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>Our translation of this meeting's minutes shows the contributions made by Ludwig Binswanger and Eugène Minkowski to the emergence of the as-yet unpublished movement. Furthermore, we can note that several historical figures in the field of psychiatry, such as Eugen Bleuler, not only attended the event, but also took part in it.</div></div><div><h3>Discussion</h3><div>In addition to the translation of the two psychiatrists’ presentations, the translation of the subsequent exchanges highlights the interest and suspicion that this philosophical movement elicited from the audience of psychiatrists. Some notions, such as intuition and experience, were discussed, and questions were raised regarding the links between this approach and other disciplines, such as psychiatry itself, aesthetics, and psychoanalysis.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusion</h3><div>Our translation provides insight into the founding of this movement, as well as into the challenges that, based on the meeting's minutes, seem to have provoked debate from the outset.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45007,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Psychiatrique","volume":"90 3","pages":"Pages 500-517"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2025-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144779277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Réaménagements relationnels des co-victimes d’un féminicide","authors":"Soline Guyomar CandidatePhD, Suzanne Léveillée (Professeure)","doi":"10.1016/j.evopsy.2025.03.013","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evopsy.2025.03.013","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objectives</h3><div>This study addresses the relational adjustments of individuals who have lost a loved one due to femicide. It explores how co-victims perceive the impact of femicide on their interpersonal relationships, by examining the social support provided by their close circle and various aid services.</div></div><div><h3>Method</h3><div>Semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the psychological consequences and relational challenges faced by bereaved families. A thematic content analysis was carried out, allowing for an in-depth examination of the interview transcripts through the identification of key themes.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>The results highlight the relational challenges and psychological consequences experienced by families grieving after a femicide. The subjective nature of emotional bonds is emphasized, particularly through the testimony of participants. The findings reveal that co-victims of femicide experience significant relational changes after the tragedy, both within their social circle and with support services.</div></div><div><h3>Discussion</h3><div>This study enhances the understanding of family and interpersonal relationships in the context of femicide. The results emphasize the importance of social support in the grieving and rebuilding process, highlighting the essential role of close relations and professionals during these critical periods.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusion</h3><div>This article contributes to advancing discussions on the support of bereaved individuals after a violent death, while also addressing avenues for future research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45007,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Psychiatrique","volume":"90 3","pages":"Pages 415-429"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2025-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144779372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pierre Delion (Professeur émérite de pédopsychiatrie, praticien hospitalier honoraire, psychanalyste)
{"title":"Enfin un discours scientifique sur les neurosciences ! À propos de… « Neurosciences, un discours néolibéral. Psychiatrie, éducation, inégalités » de François Gonon","authors":"Pierre Delion (Professeur émérite de pédopsychiatrie, praticien hospitalier honoraire, psychanalyste)","doi":"10.1016/j.evopsy.2025.01.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evopsy.2025.01.003","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45007,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Psychiatrique","volume":"90 2","pages":"Pages 368-371"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144090535","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}