This lecture took place on October 16, 2018. and was entitled “Inner children and their emotions”. It had been held by Cécile Duhil, who is a psychologist specialized in systemic therapy and attachment, and Ludovic Harel, he was a businessman and he discovered a passion for photography which brought them to a new concept: the phototherapy. Both form a therapist duo although Mr Harel does not have his psychologist title.
The conference was divided into two parts : one was about the theoretical framework and the other one about their practice.
Several theoretical notions have been developed. The first notion is about perinatal matrices, there are four different matrices : paradise, hell, death and rebirth. These matrices concern the experience of babies from their conception to their birth and attachment to their parents.
Triangulation is the second notion broached, it is about father, mother and their child, they form a triangle. At birth, the relationship between the mother and the newborn is commonly symbiotic. Father has to become a separating third party between mother and the baby to find his place in the family.
Then, the therapists explained the notion of secure and insecure relationship. This notion reminds us about Bowlby’s attachment theory, but they tackle it in a different way.
Insecure relationships would be related to the injuries experienced by the parents, they would do a projection on the child. Either the parent overprotects his child or he abdicates his responsibility with the baby. In both cases, the parent’s behaviour will have consequences on the child. The child can be parentified i.e feeling he needs to take care of his parent, dependent, over-independent or believe he is all-powerful. The child would implement a defence mechanism, this allows him to put a mask that is different from what he really his.
The lecture continues with more practical aspects, the therapists explain us why they choose to work together. Cotherapy brings different points of view. Moreover, they are a woman and a man, it helps the transfer with the patient, particularly in view of the triangulation.
Finally, they introduced their tools. They use verbalization, letters, drawings, waking dreams or hypnosis, role-play and phototherapy. Their tools allow the externalization of clients, in other words, to speak about their life by using some materials.
Our opinion about the conference is mixed. They shared a lot of theory but not much practical aspects. It seems complicated for people who are not psychologist but not enough developed for psychologists so, we do not know who was concerned about this conference. Furthermore, tools they used were just evocated but not explained. They did not mentioned authors of theories so we can’t do more research about what they advanced.
In another way, there are some positive aspects. They used during the conference a lot of examples to illustrate their tools, their theories and their approaches with patients. Moreover, the questioning about generational transfer is interesting. We also think that co-therapy is an innovative approach about the clinic approach which can be useful for some patient even though it is expensive and as a consequence not accessible for all.
Key-Words: Co-therapy, parent-child relationship, psychogenealogy
Vocabulary :
inner children : enfants intérieurs
theoretical framework : champ théorique
symbiotic : fusionnelle
separating third : tiers séparateur
to parentified : parentification
waking dream : rêves éveillés
Gaëlle BAROTIN
Laëtitia BARRE
Hélène CORBILLE
Master 2 PEADID