The Place and Therapeutic Contributions of Individual Psychoanalytic Psychodrama in the Institutional Treatment of a Psychotic Child, Gabriel: From Conflicts of Origins to the Emergence of Subjectivity

Institutional treatments in a French Medico-Psychological Center bring together several therapeutic approaches: from individual, family, and group therapy to psychodrama. This paper reviews the course of the nine-year treatment of Gabriel, a psychotic boy followed from age 3 to 12. The use of various therapeutic approaches allowed for the emergence of an internal scene which enabled him to think about the world and about himself, and to achieve an individualization, a psychic separation from the other, and hence to develop a subjectivity capable of self-reflection, essential to healthy development. Psychodrama played a key role in this process, promoting transference and acting as a guide for the development of the treatment. The authors discuss the evolution and the maintenance of the therapeutic process through the different modalities of care, while focusing on the relationship between playing and the elaboration of psychic conflicts, especially conflicts of origins.