D'enfant diabétique à mère de bébé handicapé, d'adolescente anorexique à mère de bébé « rebelle » : Un devenir problématique de la « constellation maternelle »

Abstract

From diabetic child to mother of a handicapped baby, from anorectic adolescent to mother of a « rebellious » baby: A problematic change in the « maternal constellation ». Using a clinical case study, this article proposes to present the two-way relationship between the adult's history and the child's symptom. It concerns a sixteen-month-old baby during the first consultation, addressed simultaneously by the nurse of a maternal-infantile protection center, the pediatrician and the physical therapist, for crying spasms whose frequency only increased with time. These spasms were the result of progressive symptom modification, of which the first phase was nonpsychic respiratory failure due to the medical condition of the baby at birth (cerebral paralysis with left-side hemiplegia, convulsions and respiratory failure of unknown origin) and which, at the second phase, were transformed into crying spasms appearing at moments of emotional overload, in this case, during the child's meals. These moments were closely linked to the infantile history of the mother who, since the age of 6, suffered from juvenile diabetes and since the age of 14, from mental anorexia with a secondary aggravation of the diabetic state, triggered by the suicide of her brother. We will try to show throughout the article how the fact of taking care of a sick baby reactivated the mother's own traumatic history, but also how the baby re-expressed the bodily symptoms of the child the mother had once been (anorectic, with sensations of strangulation). This case shows that the origin of the maternal constellation can be a therapeutic occasion for psychic reorganization.