Times of childhood. Clinic of urgency and helplessness

Abstract

In this paper we discuss the “times of childhood”, the relevance of what is “urgent” in the construction of psychological subjectivitythe  symptoms leading to the identification of an early distress in children up to the age of 2, and some other mental health emergencies, such as abuse, violence and Münchausen syndrome. We consider the infant-mother relationship the cornerstone of this clinic of helplessness. We discuss the notion of emergency beyond the classic psychiatric emergency. We conclude there is an urgent need to build work teams (health care professionals, education professionals, professionals in the judicial field) trained in the early detection of warning signs and early intervention.