L'adolescente infanticide: Role des antecedents traumatiques dans la genese de l'acte criminel

Cases of infanticide committed by adolescent mother highlight the vulnerability of both child and adolescent to violence. An act of infanticide is in itself a highly traumatizing event (which can lead to a veritable post- traumatic stress disorder), however quite frequently it is but another event in a personal history already punctuated with serious individual and family traumas. We will examine the case of a 18 year-old adolescent to illustrate, in the psychogenesis of infanticide, the role of violent and repetitive childhood traumas, of transgenerational repetition of a similar pattern of traumatic events and of areas of obscurity in filiation links. We will also show the relation between these biographical elements and the phenomenon of a disowal pregnancy (frequently observed). The act of infanticide, which represents a breaking point in the life of an adolescent, often results from the collusion of the reality of childbirth (senseless event seen as a brutal aggression) with the overwhelming presence of a destructive maternal imago vehicle for fantasies of the slaying of an hypothetical child). The first stage of the treatment of infanticide adolescent has to take into account the traumatic part of the event, as to be a work of translation from act into words and of appropriation of the act. In a second time phase after the conclusions of judicial procedure, the psychopathological approach will be possible, in order to lead to a psychical elaboration of internal psychical motives of the act.