Un présent tellement absent. Clinique systémique des états de conscience altérée

Abstract

Presence and absence mutually identify one another, in the way a subject in an altered state of consciousness (dementia, coma, vegetative state, multiple disabilities) perceives the surroundings, not as antagonistic conditions, but as an interaction allowing the family and therapeutic system to build up around the emergence of some significance. It is in such a system, which we call "paradoxical modulation between presence and absence", that the practitioner will need to find an area of comfort and to encourage the co-construction of an intermediary space. This setting will vouch for the welcoming of the subject in an altered state of consciousness, both in his/her bodily and historical incarnation and in his/her family role.