Psychiatric Emergencies Revisited Between Institutions and Myth Writing: An Analysis According to a Psychoanalytical Approach

Abstract

This article analyses the psychiatric emergencies’ clinic in order to identify a myth: the myth of care. Following a brief review of the literature, we draw on a qualitative institutional situation and a theoretical conception combining mythology, psychoanalysis and the institution. Our own conception of the myth of care is demonstrated here: in particular where the event is an emergency, the institution uses repetition to deal with the ineliminable, in other words a non-symbolic point. We discover that the curative ideal, explicitly illustrated by the myth of care, tends to objectify the emergency, whereas the objective is the discursive construction of a temporality. The conclusion of our analysis proves the non-symbolic point of the emergency, which paralyses an institutional temporality. Moreover, the way out would be to use myth as a relay of knowledge.