NEXT NUMBRER (Review N° 30 2024/1) – ISSUE

Family psychoanalysis in the face of Law and Justice

The chosen theme takes us to the confines of couple or family psychoanalysis.

Family law has evolved, can we assess its impact from our point of view of family psychoanalysis?

We may wonder whether the new legislative provisions are made under the pressure of social changes carried out by active minorities or whether they confirm practices that have become commonplace. The aura of scandal diminishes as couples and families are legitimized in ways that only recently caused them to be derided. We used to speak with compassion of the children of divorcees, whose situation destined them to delinquency, of adopted children, necessarily unhappy. As for illegitimate couples, they were seen as depraved, while single mothers were considered easy women. No teenager would have dared to mention an “unnatural” sexual orientation. What were considered to be shameful deviations attract less attention, but if the social shame has faded, the psychological discomfort generated by many of these situations has not necessarily disappeared and the protagonists come for consultation and for therapy.

In the face of illegal acts, justice

Delinquency and crime within the family

Alongside new marital and family configurations, which have become legal, and sometimes in connection with them, offenses and even crimes can occur within the family. Violence, mistreatment, incest, alcoholism or drug addiction occur, most often remaining hidden or unspoken. The therapeutic approach contributes to the unveiling of the unsaid, to the metabolization of the disorders generated in the links and the family group psychic apparatus.

Violence and destruction from outside

The family can also be a target of aggression, voluntary or not, whether on one of its own (e.g. in a settling of scores) or on it as a whole (arson, burglary, home jacking).

In this instance, the police or the courts are the ones who refer couples and families for consultation.

These few avenues lead to the underlying theoretical concepts, to the inter-institutional articulations involved, to examples or clinical stories which could find a place in this new issue of the International Journal of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis.

Deadline for submission of articles: April 15, 2024

Recommendations to authors can be consulted on the site