Révision de la loi bioéthique : les dangers de l’autoconservation des ovocytes pour convenance personnelle

Legalization of self-conservation of ovocytes for personal convenience is considered by the second article of the bioethics legislative proposal, adopted by French National Assembly. This practice is aiming to allow men and women to keep their gametes for the purpose of a subsequent medically assisted procreation. Does this new liberty risks to take away a human's individual liberty and more specifically a women's one? Indeed, to legalize self-conservation of ovocytes for personal convenience means to extend the message whereby a woman could delay her maternity. The result would be an implicit pressure: as it becomes medically possible to privilege first of all a career and then to envisage maternity, woman seeking high performance must necessarily choose it. This technique could therefore hide a clear-cut decline for women's rights, again confronted with a cornelian choice, a family or a career.     

2004–2009 : révision de la loi de bioéthique en France,quels enjeux,quels débats ? Assistance médicale à la procréation,gestation pour autrui,transplantation

The bioethics law, adopted for the first time in 1994 and revised in 2004, is under revision again. This process has raised numerous debates at various institutional, professional and social levels. The government also organised a unique type of citizens’ consultation: the General Estates in Bioethics (GEB). Several panels of citizens had the opportunity to express their informed opinion on a selected set of topics concerning the law revision, after having received a special training by an expert committee. We have analysed the contributions of six public bodies – the Parliament Office for Scientific and Technological Choices Evaluation (OPECST), the National Consultative Ethics Committee, (CCNE), the State Council, (CE), the Biomedical Agency, (ABM), the Senate and the Parliamentary Information Mission for this bioethics law revision – as well as the final GEB's report. In this article, we present and compare their proposals on three themes: Medically assisted procreation (MAP), surrogacy and transplantation. Whereas a consensus emerged from the debates on certain issues – apart from the Senate, all institutions seem to be in favour of maintaining the current banning of surrogacy – other points are still under debate – how to open the access to MAP technologies, under what conditions should we grant access to selected data concerning gamete donors, how is death defined in the difficult conditions of a potential non heart beating donor, should the presumed consent regime for post mortem donation be revised, and if so how, – The parliament should discuss the law during 2010's first semester, and will have the difficult responsibility to take measures on issues raising medical, scientific, social, philosophical and moral questions.     

La contribution des arbres de classification et de régression dans la prédiction de la récidive chez les délinquants sexuels adultes

Clinicians have access to several risk assessment instruments to evaluate the risk or recidivism in sexual offenders. Nevertheless, we seem to have attained a ceiling in the predictive validity of these instruments with the traditional techniques of items agglomeration. In this study, we offer a different combination of predictors with the classification and regression trees, and it, by taking into account the type of sexual offenders. The classification trees are constructed from predictors contained in seven actuarial instruments (VRAG, SORAG, RRASOR, STATIC-99, STATIC-2002, RM2000, MnSOST-R). In general, the classification trees have a higher predictive accuracy than the actuarial instruments and point out that it's not the same predictors that should be considered according to the type of offenders and the type of recidivism. Furthermore, classification trees identify correctly more recidivists than the best actuarial tool. In spite of the contribution of this approach, other types of predictors should also be considered to augment predictive accuracy: dynamic predictors, protective predictors as well as measurements based on theories like those on attachment styles (Marshall, D. R., Barbaree, H. E., 1990. An integrated theory of the etiology of sexual offending. In: Marshall, W. L., Laws, D. R. L., Barbaree, H.E. (Eds.), Handbook of sexual assault. New York: Plenum Press, pp. 257-275.) and cognitive distortions (Ward, T., Keenan, T., Hudson, S. M., 2000. Understanding cognitive, affective, and intimacy deficits in sexual offenders: a developmental perspective. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 5, 41–62.).     

La réparation des préjudices : aspects juridiques

From the juridical point of view, helping victims means the compensation for damage; substantive law principle means repairing the integral damage caused. The reform of the right of recourse of the third party payers and the new nomenclature for damages constitute a sensitive improvement of the indemnity of personal injuries. However, the implementation of repairing is heterogeneous, several ways, extra judicial or judicial, lead to indemnity.     

La réception juridique de l’incertitude médicale

As regards medical responsibility, the proof of an unquestionable causal link between the damage and the fault of the expert are made difficult in the presence of uncertainties related to the etiology of certain pathologies. The article raises the question of the reception of this uncertainty by the judge and the legislator, and wonders in particular about the founded good of the recourse to law and judicial presumptions within the framework of the dispute of the victims of multiple sclerosis developed following vaccination against hepatitis B.     

Rapport de la mission parlementaire sur la bioéthique : vers la procréation sans sexe pour tous

The parliamentary report proposes “non-sexual procreation for all”, which goes through medically assisted procreation for couples of women and single women, post-mortem procreation and dual gamete donation.     

La motivation à la réussite scolaire des lycéens togolais

A questionnaire assessing academic motivation, QMTF, has been built for high-school students in Togo, according to the model of a french test (QMF). Academic motivation is a combination of need for achievement, of internal locus of control, and of time perspective. The psychometric characteristics of the new questionnaire, which is presented in an appendix with a standardized distribution, have been observed on a sample of 493 high-school students in Togo. Comparisons between genders and with high-schools students in France and in Morocco are presented.     

La réparation psychique

Crime victims are confronted with a three-fold trauma at the physical, psychic and group levels. Indeed, trauma has a disruptive effect on the individual psyche as well as on the feeling of belonging to a larger community. As such, the crime victim must elaborate a personal questioning, while participating to a judicial proceeding aimed at restoring a feeling of belonging. Reparation thus takes place at the individual and collective levels, which implies simultaneously considering psychic reality and judicial reality, which confronts the crime victim with two positions and with two ways of functioning. After dealing with the trial's pacifying and resocializing functions, the three-times assistance support will be considered: formal and psychological preparation before the trial, assistance during the trial, post trial speech group therapy and information.     

La croyance au monde juste comme facteur explicatif de diverses réactions à des injustices professionnelles

The belief in a just world is defined as the tendency to consider that “people get what they deserve and deserve what they get”, i.e. to consider that the world is, globally, a place of justice. Facing an individual unjustly victim of negative events and for whom it seems impossible to restore the justice objectively, we frequently deny the existence of the unjustice, even if we say the responsible of what he gets. But if we can react by adopting “passive” reactions (using the victim’s moral or behavioral responsibility, as in Lerner, or evocating a future favoring the victim,..), we can also adopt “active” strategies which can lead to an objective re-establishment of the justice. In the present study, we examined the influence of the degree of the belief in the just world on the selected strategy facing professional injustices. And effectively, our results indicate a some preferences in the use of such or strategy, preferences accentuated by the gender and the professional statute.     

Dynamique des processus de développement de carrière en contexte contre-stéréotypique : modélisation de la réussite des femmes militaires aux formations professionnelles

Careers in the French Navy are determined by successive certifications allowed military to have more and more managerial responsibilities. Women are unequally represented in the hierarchy. Military identity is deeply associated with male characteristics (Sorin, 2003). Women encounter difficulties to be perceived as military in their own right (Héritier, 2011), but also to articulate their identity as women with their professional identity, de facto in opposition (Toulgoat, 2002). On the one hand women's family life is seen as incompatible with service life (Caraire & Léger, 2000), on the other hand, within the crews of warships, their skills are underestimated (Matthews, Ender, Laurence, & Rohall, 2009). The objective of this study is to model the effects of professional identifications and self-assessment of competences on the success of military women in professional certifications. We interviewed 154 students in training to become “experienced operators” (including 73 women) with an average of 3.32 years of duty (SD = 2.11) and 61 students in training to become “team leader” (including 20 women) with an average of 9.28 years of duty (SD = 3.30). The questionnaire measures self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977), performance expectations compared to their colleagues (Rosenthal, Crisp, & Suen, 2007), identification to the professional group (Laplante & Tougas, 2011) and identification to the organization (Tougas, Rinfret, Beaton, & de la Sablonniere, 2005). The final score at the end of the training is considered as an indicator of success. While women are as successful as men in the certification “operator”, they are less successful in the certification “team leader”. The structural equation model (path analysis) (χ²(15, n = 215) = 21.32, p = .13; CFI = .982, GFI = .976, RMSEA = .044) emphasizes the centrality of professional identifications to succeed in training. Women are less identified with sailor than men and feel less able to succeed, they develop lower performance expectations and they underestimate their performance compared to their colleagues, which has a negative effect on their success in training. In parallel, changes in family life are associated with reduced professional identifications, but this effect is independent of the sex of the individuals. Women are therefore exposed to two independent sources of influence limiting their career development: gender, which leads to less professional identifications and to compare unfavorably with their colleagues, and family status. These results highlight the importance of the dynamic of self-realization processes throughout the career.     

La rétention de sûreté : punir,prévenir et guérir des troubles de la personnalité ?

The law of February 25, 2008 introduced security detention. This is a post-sentence measure intended for offenders who have served their sentence. This may apply to people with personality disorders. Because of these disorders, they are considered too dangerous to be left in society but the importance of the disorders was not sufficient to benefit from the mechanism of criminal irresponsibility. Is the real objective of preventive detention, as indicated in the law, to treat disorders or, more pernicious, to eliminate ex-convicts from society?     

L’évaluation psychologique en situation transculturelle : une révision de la littérature

Human migration provokes transcultural clinical encounters that may challenge the way clinicians see themselves and how they proceed in their usual practices. In the field of psychology, psychological assessment is an important tool to better understand the patients’ needs and to design psychological interventions. Considering that most diagnostic tests and manuals have been developed in the Western context, the application of these tools with other populations remains controversial. The present literature review aims to describe the state of current knowledge on psychological transcultural assessment. Specifically, we will address: (1) the use of psychological tests in transcultural contexts, (2) the development of the Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI, DSM-5) and (3) the clinical interview: language, therapeutic relationship and participation of interpreters. In the first section, we discuss the international norms for scales and tests translation and adaptation, as well as the cultural issues that may bias the test’ application and interpretation. In the second section, we describe the creation of the CFI, and its use in recent studies. The CFI is composed by four clusters: (1) cultural definition of a problem, (2) cultural perceptions of cause, context, and support, (3) cultural factors affecting self-coping and past help seeking, and (4) cultural factors affecting current help seeking. The revised studies indicated that the CFI has a positive impact on the cultural sensibilization of mental health professionals, also improving the relationship between the patients and professionals. The cultural formulation may also prevent misdiagnosis. Beyond the use of tests and structured interviews, the clinician also faces other challenges during a transcultural assessment. We discuss in the third section the transferential and countertransferential relationship in a transcultural situation. Several elements may influence this relationship, at an individual, institutional and societal level. The evaluation of these elements may allow the clinician to better understand results of the psychological assessment. We also describe the current guidelines for the use of interpreters during health consultations in France. In conclusion, several advances have been made in the field of transcultural psychological assessment, among other things the development of guides for good translation and cultural adaptation of tools, as well as the integration of cultural issues into the DSM. However, research and changes in clinical practice are still needed, as the evaluation of cultural biases in cognitive tests and the expansion of cultural competences training among clinicians.