In France, for several years, special medical wards for adolescents have been created, whose targets are multiple : to evaluate the clinical situation, to contain the symptomatology, to bring an adapted answer and an appropriate treatment according to established diagnosis. This kind of ward, playing the part of substitute and containing agent, have to offer a transitional place in which the psychical workings of an adolescent will be able to spread, an adolescent who is looking for an external object it is possible to invest. Hospital staff meet with many difficulties (violence against others and oneself, work with the family, etc.) These wards have to define the treatment tool they represent and to their characteristics, their limits and their targets.

Adolescence, septembre 2002, 20, 3, 537-546