Pédopsychiatrie et Handicap Réflexions sur cinquante ans de changements

Abstract

An overview of the five different and successive meanings attributed to the word “Disability” during the past 50years. First, the fixed deficit opposed to the notion of a progressive disease (Law of 1975). Second, the disabling process, a consequence of the psychiatric illness (CIH 1980). Third, the handicap developmental disorder, the anti-psychiatric flag of the parents of autistic children (Chossy Law of 1996). Fourth, the situational disability, detached from the state of the person and emphasizing the relationship of the person with his or her environment (CIF 2001). Fifth, the elimination of disability in favor of difference in an ideally inclusive society (2014–2022). The articulation of these transformations in the practices of child and juvenile psychiatry intersectors was established in 1972. ConclusionThese changes in meaning were accompanied by a continuous improvement in the quality of life for children in need of ongoing substantial support. The word handicap seems to have served to seal the unthinkable of chronicity during childhood, this bio-psycho-social reality contrary to the ordinary evolutionary representations of the child psyche and to the anthropological evidence of growth.