Systemic reading, another way of thinking to apprehend situations of elderly abuse

Abstract

In 2007, a national call number was created to receive reports of ill-treatment for aged or handicapped subjects, and departmental platforms of phone-tapping were organized. Professionals of listening receive the calls for assistance or confidences of distresses related to ill treatments. They should initiate a relationship and assess the danger of the condition, therefore, in a systemic paradigm, performing a double task. According to the systemic approach, ill-treatments are usually the product of interaction and not that of an individual. They do not only concern individuals which suffer or undergo ill treatment but a system including all people leaving at home and social environment. To apprehend the complex relationships of ill treatments by professional of listening requires clarification of the situation together initiating a relation of confidence between the person calling and the professional. Therefore, the requests necessary for clarification should not be intrusive but create conditions of an exchange of information allowing a co-construction with the person calling for help. To accommodate a call for a critic situation, we need to take into account the context and not to be focused on the search of the causes of ill-treatment.