Le « non » de Rousseau et du thérapeute dans la petite enfance. Une étude de cas

The question of limits and their absence in children increasingly challenges professionals across various fields of intervention, including health, early childhood, and education. These poorly limited children present a variety of symptoms that hinder their development and whose causes and meanings need to be explored. After a theoretical detour into Roger Misès’ childhood borderline pathologies and the role of the “no” in the education of young children according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, we will illustrate this issue with the clinical vignette of a 4-year-old child seen in consultation at a medical-psychological center. Our psychodynamically-oriented clinical reading will show how this absence of limits reflects family suffering, role confusion and a lack of containment.