L’exil est particulièrement traumatique pour des adolescents qui, dans le pays d’accueil, vivent l’expérience post-migratoire dans l’incertitude. Afin de renforcer la continuité d’existence et l’imaginaire d’un groupe de jeunes mineurs non accompagnés et de faciliter le travail d’historicisation de leur expérience de l’exil, nous avons mis en place un groupe à médiation par la bande dessinée.

Six (n=6) adolescents de 15 à 17 étaient invités à concevoir une bande dessinée en groupe. Cela s’est déroulé en trois temps : le premier consistait, collectivement, en l’invention d’une histoire ; la deuxième étape était celle du stroyboard ; pour finir, il leur était demandé de faire la bande dessinée. Le groupe a procédé en X séance et chaque séance s’est clôturée par un temps de parole.

La création de la bande dessinée a favorisé chez les jeunes la réactualisation d’éprouvés de discontinuités et de pertes, du fait de sa structure formelle. La structure du média et le groupe ont permis aux participants d’engager un travail psychique sur la restauration d’un sentiment de sécurité. L’espace sécurisant et contenant du groupe tout comme le dispositif ont soutenu l’imaginaire et la vie fantasmatique du groupe.

Le dispositif a mis les participants dans une position active soutenant potentiellement le processus de reconstruction identitaire. Ils se sont servis de la bande dessinée comme un moyen de transformer et mettre en sens une partie douloureuse de leur histoire afin de se la réapproprier. Les recherches et les dispositifs d’accompagnement sont nécessaires pour prendre en compte la réalité psychique de ces jeunes, et pour améliorer leur accueil et leur prise en charge.

The exile is particularly traumatic for adolescents who, in the host country, live the post-migration experience in uncertainty. In order to enhance the continuous sense of being and the imaginary of a group of young unaccompanied minors, and to promote the narrative of their exile, we have set up a group mediated by comics. We strive to understand how and by which processes a comic mediation group could enable the support of the continuous sense of being as well as the imagination in a group of unaccompanied minors.

Six (n=6) adolescents aged 15 to 17 were invited to design a group comic strip. Participants were invited to create a comic in group. The study was divided in three specific times: (1) the first was to invent a story, (2) the second was to do a storyboard and (3) the third and last one consisted in the creation of a comic. The group proceeded in X session and each session ended with a speaking time. We chose to create a comic as a medium because of its formal qualities: the specificity and complexity of its codes seemed appropriate to work on the time and space. Therefore, the breaks and discontinuities as essential parts of the comic structure allowed the participants to work out their temporal and special experiences of exile. As working in group enables to enhance the creative processes, we have designed and set up a comic mediation group.

We observed that the creation of the comic facilitates the updating of break and loss experiences, because of its formal structure. This sometimes made the group envelope porous and fragile, and damaged the group associative chain. The mediation group allowed participants to express and transform their primary affects through images and words, which led them to go from a fixed time to a historicized time. The comic became an object that represents the individual psychic reality work, the group work but also refers to the common societal reality that concerns those adolescents. Through the comic, they question the adults, the institutions and the environments that are supposed to protect them. The structure of the comic and the group setting helped participants to restore a sense of security. Moreover, the secure and containing space created by the setting allowed the group to enhance its imagination.

The setting permitted participants to be in an active position, which supported them in the process of identity reconstruction. They used comics to transform and make sense of a painful part of their story in order to appropriate it. It is necessary to keep doing research on this subject to improve the support given for this young people. Moreover, it is essential to offer them places where they can be accompanied in the crossing of their exile experience.