Screens, adolescence and psychic life
The phone that gets confiscated or negotiated in an institution, worries about “screen addiction”, the place of images in adolescents’ construction of self, the development of psychosocial skills through artistic practice, digital parenting, including when parenting is shared between a family and an institution: these questions now run through the work of psychologists, educators, foster carers, child protection teams, adolescent centres, youth judicial protection services, schools and care settings. This section is intended first for them, as well as for parents and for cultural professionals who work alongside them.
The position I defend here belongs to a nuanced current of thought, of which the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Serge Tisseron, with whom I have been working for more than fifteen years, is one of the leading figures: seeking to understand usages rather than judging them, considering adolescents’ screen practices as a language, a bond and sometimes a symptom, rather than a cause, and preferring support over prohibition, which most often produces the opposite of what it aims for. We build ourselves by speaking, by moving and by making images; young people’s digital practices are part of that construction. My training in psychoanalysis informs this approach, through the attention paid to the frame, to listening, and to what images make it possible to express when language is not enough.
The articles gathered here come from my work, since 2015, with specialised prevention teams, local mental health councils, adolescent centres, day hospitals, child protection services and youth judicial protection, as well as from public meetings with families. The stories of these actions are collected in the section Working with care and child protection services. The workshop formats they rely on are detailed in Cultural mediation methods, questions of cultural policy for young people in Culture, youth and digital, and the formation of critical thinking in Media and information literacy.
