The emergence of self figuration in the painting of psychotic children

The emergence of self figuration for the psychotic child in the framework o f a workshop of individual painting initially comes about with the producti on of sensori-motor forms rather than of figures with representational cont ent. Based on observations during supervision in several painting workshops in a dar hospital, it appears that the genesis of body figuration for the psychotic child stems from corporality, for example in the rhythmic gestual ity or in a body to body encounter with the pictorial material. Furthermore , a possible appearance effaces or of human shapes often reflects, as in th e pictorial work of Henri Michaux, a difficult emergence of the form which is destined to disappear or to become monstrously distorted. This early ver sion of self figuration passes by a process of the ungluing of skins, mater ialized by the sheet of paper, conceived of as a psychic skin, in connectio n with transferential dynamics. The therapeutic interest of pictorial media tion in psychosis consists of proposing a task of creating figuration begin ning with sensoriality, both from the child's senso-motricity and from the sensory qualities of the pictorial material.