Raconter et se raconter à partir d’images représentant la diversité culturelle : intérêt d’une épreuve projective transculturelle pour les enfants aux appartenances culturelles multiples

Abstract

IntroductionNowadays, the wide flows of peoples lead individuals who have different culture to get in touch with one another, with a great sharing of life spaces. The psychologists, who mainly deal with multicultural families and children, do not always have suitable psychological tests. ObjectiveThe objective of this article is to evaluate how the TEMAS, in a transcultural version which represents different skin-colored characters, may enable children with multiple cultural belonging to produce stories and, at the same time, provide the psychologists with information about their psychological and emotional dynamics and their identity development. MethodsThrough the analysis of a child's stories, we emphasize the intrapsychic conflicts that he expresses, the way he perceives and interprets the illustrations depending on their latent content and the possible peculiarities connected to his identity development as a migrant's son. ResultsThe closeness between the real multicultural background where the children grow up and the illustrations that represent it, may help the adherence to the material of the test and the quality of the identification and narration process. ConclusionThe TEMAS can be an instrument, which permits to explore the children's psychic functioning, through their narrative productions whatever their cultural and linguistic route is.