Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior
Open Access

Abstract

Aim: Developing the interest of using videogames in therapy to stimulate narrativity, as a contemporary mediation tool. Case Report: We present the case of Tristan, a 16-years-old adolescent, ingressed in an educational, therapeutic and pedagogical institute since early childhood and followed up through a weekly psychotherapy in a private practice. It is in this space that an unprecedented mechanism was born, on the initiative of the adolescent, through the use of a Wii-U and the video game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a famous action-adventure game in which the hero, Link, will have to unravel the mysteries of the past and defeat Ganon, the evil. In this presentation, we will explain how the adolescent capitalizes on the digital image and distorts the game, before recreating it and depositing in it his pubertal scenario. Result: So, through an articulation in crude, violent and pornographic words of the (otherwise calm and appeased) story of the video game, the adolescent finds a way to contain his excitation in a virtual form. Conclusion: The originality of the proposed mechanism stands in the transfero-counter transretinal inscription of these game sequences. The scene uncoils with several protagonists, the speech diffracting between the adolescent, the avatar and the therapist: The story of the self emerges through identifications to the avatar and the relationship with the therapist, enabling to access to the subjectivity of the adolescent just like any other projective tool, such as the Rorschach.

Biography

Haza Marion has obtained her PhD from Poitiers University, France and her HDR (accreditation to supervise research) in 2017 from Paris 13 University. She is the President of CRADO (Association of Clinical Research for Adolescence) and General Secretary of the CILA (International College of Adolescence). She has published more than 20 papers in acclaimed journals. She currently works on several researches related to the adolescent process and modernity, in particular the place of videogames in the pubertal psychic construction. She also works a lot on the stakes of psychotherapies and adolescence.

E-mail: marion.haza@gmail.com