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Serge Lebovici

Elements of Baby Psychopathology

Review of the Press

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Remarks collected by Francoise Coblentz with Serge Lebovici.

“It is about a collection entitled "At the dawn of the life", which constitutes a multi-media tool for formation in the widened field of paedopsychiatrie, collection which I direct with Bernard Golse, on the initiative of Alain Casanova and Monique Saladin, who are the directors. Its goal is to make available to the whole professionals of childhood the field of psychiatry of the child, from foetus to adolescence, such as it is seen by psychoanalists. It is thus addressed to a very vast public, which largely exceeds the public of psychiatrists: psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, paediatrists, nurses, medical and social contributors, etc. Each box of the collection is composed of a book, video documents and a CD-Rom. The originality of the collection holds of course in the association of these various complementary modes of transmission of knowledge, but also in their articulation and the interactive nature of the whole work.

I started, long time ago, to be interested in the possibilities offered by video and to use it as a mode of transmission of knowledge. It was in 1968 at the Alfred-Binet Center, in the 13e district. The video made it possible to make considerable progress, by reproducing the intuitive reasoning which leads us in the consultation, as well as allowing to work on it. The fine microanalysis and the slow motion make it possible to seize movements or gestures which can pass unperceived in real time. In this work which inaugurates the collection, Elements of Baby Psychopathology, a certain number of consultations or extracts of consultations are inserted. The patients are aware, of course, that they are filmed but their faces are masked. Thus the consultation, the very practice of the psychoanalist, which I call for my part my "empathetic enaction", i.e. the possibility that I have to feel with my body and to understand, can be seen and discussed by a very large number of people without there being indiscretion for all that. I insist on the need for discussing these documents, for seeing them and re-examining them in group, for exchanging observations. Besides, in the video documents themselves, the consultations are being discussed with colleagues, among whom the largest international specialists. It is in the sense that this work constitutes an instrument of formation really alive and interactive. In addition the notions or fundamental concepts are indicated progressively and refer to an illustrated glossary. New technologies make it possible to transmit what cannot be transmitted by traditional theoretical ways: clinical and therapeutic practice in act, the on-the-spot experiment of the practitioner. The use of the unit is thus very flexible. The book makes a thorough theoretical contribution to which one can refer when it is wished. The CD-Rom makes it possible to navigate between various points of view, to confront them in a virtual debate, to auto-evaluate while answering questions, to have access to an illustrated bibliography. Very soon, the users will be able to dialogue on Internet and I will answer them personally. The boxes also exist in English version and Spanish version.

After this first box on Elements of Baby Psychopathology, others are in preparation. The second box of the collection on Ultrasound Testing During Pregnancy and its Implications, will be published at the beginning of May. We have here an incomparable and essential instrument of formation.”

Françoise Coblence

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