Terrible children, the impulses of very young children

Abstract

We can find the mythology of terrible children in several societies (West Africa, Mesoamerica, Europe…). We put in relation the study of an African corpus of texts with the analyse of the very young child drives, relying on the works of the Mélanie Klein and Donald Winnicott schools. The object of this communication is to theoretically present the facts and to open on a perception of the very young child drives, relying on clinical examples.In the considered societies, all the children are, where there are very young, potentially terrible. Their position in the mythology corresponds to a projection of the very young child universe in the “sky” of the myths.If the west African and Mesoamerican societies take in count those drives and regulate them, especially with rituals, Occidentals societies has, since the 16th century and the “big enclosure of abnormal people”, difficulties to take in count those drives even if the terrible child pattern still exist in the folktales (John of the bear, The Little Red Riding Hood…). This confrontation between traditional and modern societies mythology seems inevitable if we want advance in the setting up of adapted structures to young children and especially supporting structures of the so call autistic children. In conclusion, we will make some propositions, relying on, especially, on the network put in place by Fernand Deligny and continued today by Jacques Lin.Keywords: Mythology; Terrible children; Psychoanalysis; Autism; Deligny