INSTITUT CLAPARÈDE

The Institut Claparède is a treatment and consulting center. Its objectives are "the diagnosis and treatment of mentally maladjusted children whose maladjustment is associated with neuropsychic disturbances or behavioral disturbances likely to benefit from medical therapy, medical and psychological re-education, psychotherapeutic re-education, or even specialized psychopedagogical re-education under medical control." It is one of the Centres médico-psychopédagogique (Medical and Psychopedagogical Centers), which, since 1956, have been monitored by the Direction d'action sanitaire et sociale (Department of Health and Social Activity) and financed by the French health care system.

A thousand families and children are treated each year. The institute has been active since 1949. In 2001 it had a team of 23 psychoanalysts, including 21 child psychiatrists, and 24 psychologists and re-educators working with 5 social workers. When the institute was created, the inclusion of child psychoanalysis added a new understanding of educational and adaptive problems in terms of the precursors of the evolution of personality. Specialized teams of psychoanalysts provide appropriate treatment to patients of all ages (up to twenty-one or older) through conventional psychoanalysis and various forms of analytic psychotherapy: psychodrama, family therapy, couples therapy, group therapy. The institute's activity provides a psychoanalytic dimension to various activities in the field of child psychiatry, education, and maternal and infant protection.

Simone Decobert

See also: France.

Bibliography

Association des centres psychopédagogiques. (1954). Rapport sur l'activité des premiers centres psychopédagogiques à Paris (Claude-Bernard), Strasbourg et Mulhouse. Paris: Association des centres psychopédagogiques.

Association française pour la sauvegarde de l'enfance et de l'adolescence. (1959, May-June). Problème d'un centre médico-psychologique: l'institut Claparède. Sauvegarde de l 'enfance, 5-6.

——. (1989, May-June). Travaux de l'institut Claparède: quarante ans d'existence. Sauvegarde de l 'enfance, 3.

Chabanier, Jacques. (1988). Le centre médico-psycho-pédagogique: son histoire, sa pratique, ses valeurs. Paris: Paidos-Le Centurion.