Background. - Ageing is often presented solely through the lens of loss and bereavement. When mental disorders occur in the elderly, the "deficit" approach results in the overconsumption of psychotropic drugs, implicitly confirming the lack of hope felt by others. The societal proposals for assisting people in death, that sometimes result from this, overshadow the profound experience of the elderly, where a number of studies have confirmed that it is possible to provide them with an outlook for hope. The recovery paradigm has contributed to bringing forth a new perspective for people with "severe" mental disorders, focused on "empowerment" and "connectedness" with the social world. Can this also be relevant for elderly people even though the pending horizon of death is an undeniable reality of their experience? Several studies have confirmed the value of this paradigm for informing interventions in this population, particularly through narrative programs. Objectives. - Based on a narrative group proposal of guided autobiography, we wanted to clarify to what extent the central dimensions of recovery such as hope, empowerment and "connection" could be taken into account and highlighted in the care of depressed elderly people. Method. - A ten-session group guided autobiography program, using written and oral communication, was developed and proposed to 3 groups of from 5 to 8 participants in a psychiatric day hospitalization unit for the elderly. In weekly one-and-a-half hour sessions, participants discussed and wrote about their life experiences in relation to a given theme. The 10 themes-one per session-had been selected through working with depressed elderly people during a pre-study meeting: Time, Family and Relatives, Work and Activity, Money, Sex and Gender, Food, Body and Health, Death, Travel, and Arts. Five participants in each group were able to complete the entire evaluation process. At the beginning and end of the program, their mood was evaluated with the Montgomery-& Aring;sberg Depression Rating Scale, and relation to time was assessed by the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory. Observation grids were used to track the changes in people's participation and the characteristics of their texts. At the end of the 10 sessions, an interview was conducted with each person which was subsequently analyzed according to the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) method, in order to reconstitute their experience. Results. - In addition to the symptomatic improvement measured with the MADRS, the observation grids and The Time Perspective profiles suggest changes indicative of recovery processes in almost all the individuals. The analysis of the interviews also highlights evidence of experiential recovery. Discussion. - The therapeutic group proposal would appear to favor several dimensions of recovery, such as hope, connection and empowerment, for all the participants. However, the subjective appropriation and concrete implementation of a recovery process, in terms of meaning and reshaping of the Self, are, in every case, linked to an eminently singular life story, as shown by the texts produced, the modes of involvement of each person within the program, and the qualitative analysis of the interviews. Conclusion. - The recovery paradigm is effective with elderly people suffering from depression, provided that the care programs are developed with a consideration of the problems of ageing and the singularity of each person's experiences. (c) 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Contexte Le vieillissement est souvent présenté uniquement sous l’angle de la perte et du deuil. Lors de la survenue de troubles psychiques chez les personnes âgées, l’approche « déficitaire » va de pair avec une surconsommation de psychotropes, confirmant implicitement l’absence d’espoir ressentie par autrui. Les propositions sociétales d’accompagnement vers la mort qui en découlent parfois occultent l’expérience profonde des personnes âgées, nombre d’études confirmant qu’il est possible de réouvrir l’espoir chez celles-ci. Le paradigme du rétablissement (recovery) a contribué à un nouveau regard pour les personnes présentant un trouble mental « sévère », centré sur la restauration du pouvoir d’agir et de la « connexion » (connectedness) avec le monde social. Ce paradigme peut-il être pertinent pour des personnes âgées alors même que l’horizon de la mort est une réalité indéniable de leur vécu ? Plusieurs études ont confirmé l’intérêt de ce paradigme pour orienter les interventions dans cette population, notamment via des dispositifs narratifs. Objectifs En nous appuyant sur une proposition thérapeutique groupale d’autobiographie guidée, nous avons souhaité préciser dans quelle mesure les dimensions centrales du rétablissement comme l’espoir, la restauration du pouvoir d’agir et la « connexion » pouvaient être prises en compte et mises en évidence dans l’accompagnement des personnes âgées dépressives. Méthode Un dispositif d’autographie en dix séances de groupe, fondé sur l’écrit et l’oral, a été élaboré et proposé à trois groupes de cinq à huit participants dans une unité d’hospitalisation de jour en psychiatrie pour la personne âgée. À raison d’une séance hebdomadaire d’une heure trente, ces participants ont discuté et écrit sur leurs expériences de vie en lien avec un thème donné. Les thèmes retenus pour chaque séance avaient été décidés avec des personnes âgées dépressives lors d’une pré-étude : Temps, Famille et proches, Travail et activité, Argent, Sexe et Genre, Nourriture, Corps et Santé, Mort, Voyages, Arts. Cinq sujets dans chaque groupe ont pu répondre à l’ensemble du processus d’évaluation. En début et en fin de dispositif, l’humeur a été évaluée par la Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), et le rapport au temps, par l’Inventaire de Perspective Temporelle de Zimbardo. Des grilles d’observation ont permis d’appréhender l’évolution de la participation des personnes et des caractéristiques de leurs textes. À l’issue des dix séances, un entretien a été proposé à chaque personne et analysé suivant la méthode Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), de façon à restituer son expérience. Résultats Outre l’amélioration symptomatique mesurée avec la MADRS, les grilles d’observation et les profils de perspective temporelle suggèrent des changements indicatifs de processus de rétablissement chez la quasi-totalité des personnes. L’analyse des entretiens met également en évidence des éléments attestant d’un rétablissement expérientiel. Discussion La proposition thérapeutique semble favoriser différentes dimensions du rétablissement, comme l’espoir, la connexion, et la restauration du pouvoir d’agir chez l’ensemble des personnes. Cependant, l’appropriation subjective et la déclinaison concrète d’un processus de rétablissement, en termes de sens de la vie (meaning) et de remaniements du Soi, se révèlent chaque fois liées à une histoire éminemment singulière, comme le montrent les textes produits, les modes d’implication de chacun au sein du dispositif et l’analyse qualitative des entretiens. Conclusion Le paradigme du rétablissement est opérant chez les personnes âgées dépressives, à condition de pouvoir élaborer des dispositifs adaptés à la problématique du vieillissement et pouvant prendre en compte la singularité des expériences des personnes.

Aims. - Based on Michel Foucault's notion of subjectivation through self-writing and Paul Ric oe ur's reworking of narrative identity, our aim is to clarify the clinical relevance of an autobiographical writing group for depressed seniors. Method. - After an analysis of Foucault's self-writing and its relationship to Ric oe ur's narrative identity, we illustrate its scope by studying the dynamics generated by the participation of an elderly depressive patient in an autobiographical writing group. The effects of the participation on depression were assessed using the MontgomeryAsberg Depression Rating Scale, an observation grid of the group activity, a semi-directive interview held at the end of the program, and a series of remote clinical interviews. Results. - In addition to an improvement in mood, the way the person appropriated the writing process gives evidence of an experiential recovery, with a new meaning conferred to one's existence and an in-depth reconfiguration of the subjective universe. Discussion. - The concepts of self-writing and narrative identity are complementary in shedding light on the dynamics observed in the reported case. The data gathered from the person, who was not initially expected to embrace the invitation to write (lack of educational achievements, entrenched depression in a 70-year-old complicated by dependency), confirms the clinical potential of an approach based on self-writing within a group of elderly people. Conclusion. - The proposal of a structured writing activity, based on the conceptual contributions of Michel Foucault and Paul Ric oe ur, may prove fruitful in the recovery process for elderly people with depression, even if this can only be confirmed by the appropriation of the process within the person's lived experience. (c) 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

How to reach Paradise using only a few idealized and limited representational fragments gathered over a lifetime? After having specified the logical questions raised by the (re)presentation of a paradisiacal world, we show that such a world, in order to have the characteristics usually attributed to Paradise (such as unity or plenitude), must satisfy specific representational properties with respect to the Good. In order to clarify the impact of these properties on the access to Paradise, we introduce the Grounded Representation Theory which allows the construction of represented universes. Building on this framework, we then propose directions for a logical analysis of the power of experiences that, from limited fragments of presence, enable one to initiate the ascent towards Paradis.

Underlying the theory of inferences, a primary task of logic is language analysis. Such a task can be understood as depending on a general theory of representation, taking as a starting point the idea that some entities (`` representations '') can present some entites (`` contents ''). We outline a theory of representation accounting for the capacity of representational systems to access universes that extend beyond an immediate presence. We define three logical properties that any adequate representational system should have: completeness, faithfulness, coherence. We show that logical laws are laws of representation. Finally, it appears that logic can be considered as the abstract theory of representation.

Two types of functional reasoning are commonly used in psychiatry. For the first type, a mental disorder is conceptualized as the impairment of a mental function: this type of reasoning is nowadays oriented towards research on neurobiological disorders that are supposed to underlie mental disorders. For the second type of functional reasoning, a function is assigned to a mental disorder—that is, a disorder is considered as a defensive process in a mental or family system—and this function has an etiological role, not only in maintaining the disorder, but also in triggering it. We detail this second type of reasoning that gives a strong explanatory value to the notion of function. We briefly analyse some variations of this explanatory value in the psychoanalytic, cognitive-behavioural and family/systemic models that are among the main conceptual frameworks currently used in psychiatry. Finally, we attempt to clarify certain epistemological consequences of the irreducibility of functional etiological reasoning in psychiatry.

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Les méthodes qualitatives sont associées au domaine des sciences humaines, auquel appartient la psychologie. Pour autant, leur usage est parfois dénoncé comme moins scientifiques que d’autres approches. Nous souhaitons montrer à l’inverse que les méthodes qualitatives répondent à tous les critères de scientificité nécessaire. À partir d’une analyse d’écrits faisant référence, nous rappelons les fondamentaux épistémologique de l’approche qualitative, puis les liens entre cette approche et la démarche clinique. Notre analyse nous amène à présenter l’approche mixte qui est une façon encore différente de penser l’approche méthodologique, ici en alliant le qualitatif et le quantitatif, et qui constitue une approche distincte des deux premières. À l’issue de cette analyse, nous présentons l’approche mixte, féconde pour révéler la complexité clinique, dont la recherche en sciences humaines doit rendre compte. Nous prenons le champ des pratiques complémentaires en plein développement comme exemple de la pertinence de cette méthodologie. Mais d’autres pratiques sont évidemment concernées. La publication de travaux mettant en œuvre l’approche qualitative ou mixte est un enjeu crucial en psychologie clinique. Qualitative methods are associated with the field of human sciences, to which psychology belongs. However, their use is sometimes denounced as less scientific than other approaches. On the contrary, we wish to show that qualitative methods meet all the necessary scientific criteria. Based on an analysis of reference documents, we recall the epistemological fundamentals of the qualitative approach, then the links between this approach and the clinical approach. Our analysis leads us to present the mixed approach, which is a different way of thinking about the methodological approach, here by combining the qualitative and the quantitative, and which constitutes an approach distinct from the first two. At the end of this analysis, we present the mixed approach, which is fruitful for revealing the clinical complexity that research in the human sciences must account for. We take the field of complementary practices in full development as an example of the relevance of this methodology. But other practices are obviously concerned. The publication of works using the qualitative or mixed approach is a crucial issue in clinical psychology.