This publication brings together eleven articles on the clinical treatment of disability from French researchers in the fields of psychology, anthropology, psychiatry, and philosophy. The authors all have practical experience in the field and most are clinicians sharing a common psychoanalytical epistemology. The diverse nature of their contributions opens a window onto the mental life of people affected by various deficiencies, be they cognitive, motor, sensory or even multiple, and of those close to them, at all ages. The work provides English-speaking readers with an insight into the way French authors raise the relevant issues, elaborate theories relating to clinical disability management and implement innovative practices. Each of the authors develops an original approach, affording recognition to the subjectivity and inter-subjectivity of the disabled person and those dear to them, intimating that the disability (as with all human experience) is all about the relation existing between the person concerned and their life story, and also their relations with others--with the society and culture in which the condition emerges and evolves throughout life. About the Authors: Simone Korff Sausse is a psychologist-psychoanalyst, a member of the Société Psychanalytique de Paris, and emeritus lecturer at the Psychoanalytical Studies Faculty at the University Denis Diderot, Paris 7. She has conducted studies into the psychoanalytical approach in care for disabled children and their families, as well as into the creative process in artists. She is a founding member of SIICHLA (Séminaire Universitaire International sur la Clinique du Handicap). Regine Scelles is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychopathology at the University of Paris West Nanterre la Défense. She works in a department providing early help to disabled children and has considerable experience working in disabled people’s own domestic environments. She has conducted research into the family and more specifically siblings, adolescents, and adults facing disability. She has published works on the family and multiple disabilities and is a founding member of SIICHLA. |