The concept of narrative filiation: A fourth dimension of filiation

Based on their clinical experience in the area of international adoptions, the authors propose that all children’s filiation be taken into account, no matter what the situation of their birth and development might be. This should include biological, psychic and symbolic (or legal) dimensions, to which they add a narrative dimension heretofore not conceptualized. They propose a psychoanalytic and phenomenological definition and illustrate it with stories taken from the psychic lives of babies and their early interactions with those who care for them and fragments of psychotherapies carried out in situations of international adoption.