Identifying the Dynamics of Change Already Present when Applying for Aid

Abstract

Researching the construction of experience involves working on the very mode in which experience is built in its continuum, in its micro-social aspects, in its simultaneous transformations of action and thought of action. In short, it is a matter of building research as experience is built. It is the basis of this text that has as its particular subject the first request for help, an issue for all professions who act on/with others. In professional intervention, the first request to the intervener is simply considered to be a premise of his intervention necessary to establish the link, but which is not always constituted as a resource for action with individuals. The materials for requests for aid collected through a mental health access and recourse scheme are deciphered here using an activity analysis approach to identify from the first contact the dynamics already underway, potentially mobilized by the exchange partners. Behaviours that reveal the dynamics of actors are present in the way they present and position themselves. They show and hear the limits and terms of the compromises that those seeking help consider possible and acceptable. To consider self-assertion, one’s will and one’s choices, as dynamics allows people to move and transform the situation in which they find themselves.