2002 International International Biennial Scientific Meeting

THE ROLE OF CHILD PSYCHIATRY IN A PERINATAL UNIT: DEVELOPMENTS IN COLLABORATIVE WORK BETWEEN PAEDIATRICIANS, OBSTETRICIANS AND CHILD PSYCHIATRISTS IN A PERINATAL INSTITUTE

Linda Morisseau*, Marie-José Soubieux**, and François Syrol**

* Child-Psychiatrist, Head of the Department of Child-Psychiatry at I.P.P.
** Child psychiatrists at I.P.P.
Centre de Guidance infantile, Institut de Puériculture et de Perinatalogie (I.P.P.), Paris, France

mlinda@club-internet.fr

The tradition of team work began in the 1960s at the Infant Guidance Centre of Paris where Professor Michel Soulé, Doctor Kreisler and Doctor Michel Faim, all psychoanalysts, were then working together with obstetricians and other specialists to prevent psychic and somatic disorders in infants at the Parisian Institute of Perinatology and Child Development (I.P.P.). As they became interested in the prevention of disorders linked to pregnancy, they began to focus on the treatment of parents' psychological disorders in cases where the fotus presented some kind of anomaly. The experience of this "infant guidance", organized along specific stages of infancy and parenthood, has demonstrated the importance of such collaboration.

The difficulty of psychiatric work inside the department of neonatology and more recently the department of fetal medicine is due mainly to the obstacles to the rich associative thought needed for the treatment of their psychological disorders - obstacles caused by the major traumas they are undergoing. The thoughts of families, but also of psychiatrists and psychologists, focus spontaneously on the medical issues, thus often diminishing their capacity for insight.

We will describe the theoretical and dynamic aspects of our work.