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Alibert

I would like to share with you my short experience with video session with children during this troubled period.
I am a child psychiatrist psychoanalyst from France Paris SPP. I had to stop to see my patients on monday because of isolation. I propose to continue the session by phone or video. I still work in my office which is in a part of my home so they can see me and the office on the video.
Most of the children patients choose to continue the therapy via video sessions. Skype or whattsapp. Children from 4 to to 15 years old. I say to the parents to let the child stay in a quiet room alone with the phone on video call. The children can move with the phone so… the troubles begin…. I can see their private universe, They show me their room …their bed, their toys, the picture on the wall… they make me visit the entire apartment, the brothers and sisters’s rooms even the parent’s room … on a direct primitive scene ! The camera is always moving so it is sometimes difficult for me to follow …but this is interesting because I can see the world as they want to show it to me with their eyes, I see the world with their look at one meter high and it change my look . Suddenly everything seems very big to me … the furniture the parents…I can better remember what it’s like to be small surrounded by things that seem giant and maybe I can better reconnect with my infant part and identify with them… Some of my patients draw on paper and show me their drawings. With one 5 years old child we made a fight with puppet and figurines, but this time it was my toys against his toys …so a lot of aggressiveness can emerge with this usually inhibited boy. With an other we play mime game, dice game, with an other hands game “Stone leaf scissors”, with an other we have preparing a meal with « dinette », but it was « what do you have at home? » and « What do I have in my office » and we try to share for a common meal… with one we play « hide and seek » game but it was difficult for me to find the child outside the screen! One child was in his kitchen and started to show me all the things he was forbidden to touch …touching the oven or bringing food in the fridge. … So I have to say: no stop!
After the end of the sessions they all wanted to continue the video session. Some asked me to see their drawings’s pocket that I keep in my office and they were relaxed of that. To see that things stay in the same place.
For the moment the children are happy to stay at home not going to school spend in time with their parents …but it is only 4 days and they begin to miss school friends and teachers. Some of them showed me their works from school, their notebook with a lot of emotion…
I will continue to work like this… for the moment I don’t know for how many time it will be possible to keep the contact but I think we can do a lot of things with video session with children and that brings up interesting things…that we can maybe theorize after…