This article shows that psychotherapy inspired by psychoanalysis may be applied to institutionalized patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. That kind of psychotherapy is all the more justified by the fact that patients are affected by the loss of their relationships and libidinally invested objects. The clinician has to adapt to a psyche suffering from cognitive disorders where the motions of transference and countertransference are massive and play an important role in the psychic economy of patients. Following up on the massive distress of the elderly, which was made possible due to the clinical status of the psychotherapist, allowed patients to reinvest the relationship with the other. This psychotherapeutic follow-up resulted in a sensation of safety and in the decrease of psycho-behavioral disorders of patients who experience a phenomenon of de realization caused by the neurological disorders related to their age.
Alzheimer; psychotherapy; transference; countertransference