Du bébé à la famille : de l’observation du nourrisson à la thérapie familiale psychanalytique : au-delà des différences de pratique, quelques points de convergence

Psychoanalytic family therapy and infant observation according to the Esther Bick method differ a priori in their aims. One is a psychotherapeutic device while the other is a training course for psychotherapists. Both approaches have psychoanalytic theory, its epistemology and ethics, as their common basis. The clinicians are guided by the families they meet, whether they are suffering or “normally well”. Thinking jointly about these two systems makes it possible to overcome the debate that opposes the “real baby”, of direct and developmental observation, and the “true baby”, reconstructed on the couch. In fact, the observer in training is witness to the narration of fantasmatic and transgenerational elements, weaving a psychic cradle that welcomes the “real baby” and where the construction of the “true baby” begins. Family therapists are naturally attentive to these plural constructions and imaginaries, and to the claims of these eternal babies that families still carry within them. Both approaches involve attention to the archaic, to affective and sensory experiences, and both rely on the group: the observer witnesses the birth or remodeling of the family group, while the support group participates in the transformation of the observed material in search of elaboration. In the same way, the neo-group, composed of the family therapists and the families, supports a space of containing reverie, which facilitates the re-establishment of a new form of fantasmatic circulation. The observer, by his presence, modifies the family system in which he is in fact included, families testify to the benefit they derive from these meetings, and therapeutic applications at home have thus been set up to support families in difficulty, while at the same time, practitioners defend the interest of psychoanalytical family work in perinatal care. The articulation of these two systems gives us a glimpse of fruitful perspectives for training, prevention and psychotherapeutic support.