Le résident bouc émissaire en EHPAD

The habit of looking at the geriatric reality from solely the biomedical angle doesn't always allow us to understand the systemic complex interactions linking people and institutions. The “scapegoat mechanism” described by the philosopher and anthropologist René Girard can throw a fundamental light on the institutional dynamics of nursing homes. Through several clinical examples, we propose to describe Girard's theory applied to the area of gerontology, to analyse its causes and consequences, and see what we can learn from this for our care systems. As we'll show, the scapegoat, albeit little known, is one of the best indicators of an institution in crisis.