François came to the CLER session for Young People on August 19th 2013, forced to do so by his parents, or so he told us. His head down, decidedly wishing to keep aloof, and silent, he had resolved to be there without being present, and he wanted everyone to know it. But – you will say – what is the meaning of a CLER session for Young People ?
For the last 30 years, at the end of August, the mouvement CLER Amour et Famille (CLER Love and Family) proposes a session of five days of reflexion for young people aged 17 to 21 from all over France. This takes place in a climate which is respectful and warmly welcoming. It is a time to work on the assimilation of this very special transition from childhood to adulthood: it implies daring to be oneself, getting to know oneself better, knowing what I want to do with my life, getting over my fears, building my inner self, changing, learning to evolve in my considerations of sexuality, or my relationship with others or the way I see my body, my place in society and in my family. Thanks to fifteen counsellors trained to be listeners who can accompany the young people with a suitable and active pedagogy, each young person can be helped to grow in his or her psychology, psyche, and spiritual life in order to be able to make the right choices for the future, and to act – which means to modify their behaviour by reflecting on the meaning of actions and not through obligations imposed by fear of punishment.
The progressive pedagogy used throughout the five days and two years, because the session exists on two levels, the second level being more centered on the body, helps each young person to advance along
- a path towards finding himself/herself, to understand his/her history, sexual identity, competence and fragility.
- A path towards meeting the other person through sharing in groups, games, learning, times of creativity.
- And eventually meeting with the Great Other One (God?) during a day of meditation.
This is a path that enables the young person to concentrate on himself/herself, and then to go towards the other person, so that both can go within themselves and beyond themselves.
Maurice Zundel explains this beautifully (« à l'écoute du silence » or « listening to silence ») :
« it is not in our biology that we find the roots of our rights, but rather the possibility for each one to become the sanctuary of an infinite Presence ».
Our François, 17 years of age, arrives, therefore, in Troyes en Champagne, having decided firmly to remain passive in case he wasn't « heard » or understood in his refusal or in his suffering. We found him several times isolated in his room, away from the main group. On the evening of the second day, the two counsellors of his team, after having tried on various occasions to welcome him, to integrate him, and having used strategies to help him get ahead in this session, in spite of himself and with him, found themselves at a loss. « From the first day, the closed up attitude of François was difficult for me to understand, I was'nt at ease with the situation.... I wondered how we could make him participate in the general activities. Whether it was in a small group or a larger one, he excluded himself. I did not see any improvement except when on the second day, the discussion with Elisabeth seemed to be a « normal » one. Wouahou, what progress ! But the evening activity on « expression » (a festive evening during which each young person will speak in front of the larger group, acting out a text he or she has prepared) was not conducive to helping him to find his own place.
He refused the open invitation from his team asking him to present a text (the texts are rehearsed during the day in excercises of oral expression). At the final conclusions of the activity, I was next to François. He was taking little steps backward in order to leave the circle : FAILURE !!
As I saw his refusal to participate I began to ask myself if the case was not too much for the session and for our little group. I began to contemplate, and I discussed this with Elisabeth, the hypothesis of his anticipated departure.... »
The two first days of the session concentrate particularly on « welcoming oneself, esteem of oneself » - they therefore are without any noticeable evolution concerning the « blockage » of François. On the third day, the theme for the young people in the first year is on sexuality. « When the subject is introduced to our group, the young people work together on charts that they prepare on « relationships between men and women ». This is a creative task working through pictures which enable each one to represent how he/she views sexuality and the relationships between men and women. I then go up to François very naturally. I tell myself that I have nothing to lose, and ask him if being part of the group exchanging ideas was not too difficult for him ? The answer was « no ! ». Do you find the subject of the day annoying ? The answer was : « YES, absolutely, I cannot talk about it, that's all, it's just impossible ». We will never know what François experienced in his approach to sexuality during his own personal history. Will this new refusal on the third day of the session be the definite point of rupture and no return ? Must we take this for a fact and contact his parents to envisage a possible return home ? These questions are discussed the same evening with the team of counsellors – as we discover that our team constitutes a « continuation » of the contact with his parents with whom the relationship is blocked. Should we contact the parents ? Take François back to them ? Certainly not! We decide to relay among eachother to keep the dialogue open with François, to try to change the face to face conflict with his parents, to consider him in a different light, and to modify the programme without insisting that he be part of the larger group, avoid excluding or stigmatising him, and to give him the possibility of expressing his refusal – these are the options decided upon at the end of the session. « I realized afterwards the importance of this REFUSAL – what seemed to be a failure was in fact an assertion ! » Saying « NO » to take on a « NAME » (to become someone). The next day our team of counsellors reaped the fruits of their supervision. François seems less confrontational, he accepts suggestions and the annoyances of the general daily routine. I spend a long time talking with him, even though I am not a monitor of his group. The two thirds of this exchange concern his own life, his passions, his cultural knowledge, his first year at university, and then little by little his personal relationships with friends, but also his conflictual relationship with his parents who, as he tells me, do not accept him as he is. It is only after half an hour that we finally make eye-contact, and that his spirit becomes slowly interested in what I represent, meaning something in the order of otherness, of the possibility of an alliance in his favour, of a total welcome toward what he is living, of a certain autonomy of thinking, of a certain identity being built. He will then begin to talk, as he did last evening with one of his counsellors, about his difficulties in establishing relationships, of that which handicaps him, of the relationship with his parents...(« He begins to explain to me two or three little things in his life, in his relationship with his parents, and we have a good and very natural discussion, he talks to me about his suffering, he even tells me that he loves his parents, he knows that they act that way out of love, but they don't understand him, that every time they talk it becomes a fight.... »). He who has expressed himself as being essentially interested by intellectual pursuits, culture...He who is so ill at ease with that which is physical, the body, sports, will come to meet me afterwards – in his own way, at a distance, in an energetic football game with other young people in the session. Our we saw the man that he is, and not on the child caught in the contradictions of parental hopes, and this seemed to open something inside of François.
What follows confirms the intuitions of the group of counsellors : « At the time allotted to small groups at the beginning of the afternoon Chantal speaks first to express her joy at having spoken with François. He interrupts her to excuse himself for having spoken too much, it seems like a dream for us ! The whole group shakes with laughter which expresses relief at having found the 9th element -
(the small groups are made up of eight to ten young people). Questions are fired from all sides, silence returns again and we make up for lost time. He plays the game (the ME) completely. We have found François, just where he was and with all he is ! That evening when coming into our room for the Totem session, one of the young people of the group is late... Everyone calls out loudly to ask who it is, and François says : « For once the empty chair is not mine... » : that's enormous !!!! He can even laugh at himself... He will join in the evening activity with the same sincerity, referring sometimes to his « stupid attitude » at the beginning of the session (as though it was 15 days ago, but it was only the day before yesterday !!!) The whole small group is in a sort of euphoria, and I am moved to live a sort of birth, the birth of François, the birth also of the beautiful fruit brought forth by the small group. The next day for the evening on « creation » ( the young people present a play created by their group which they have prepared during the day) I stopped accompanying François personnally. As far as I was concerned he had become one of the young people present and I had no doubts about his participation in the day on creativity. There was a wonderful result in the evening as he took an important part in his sketch, and showed his willingness to participate wholeheartedly ! We learned later that the very same day he sent a phone message to his parents to say that he would return for the next session - the White session (second level of the session) !!!
To conclude, here are a few simple remarks which are fundamental. The « rebirth » of François, to repeat the words of his counsellor, shows the psychic birth of the child when he is in the « no » period : he will not show opposition, but will try out the possibility to differentiate himself, to escape any control, expectations or directions from the adult, and for François the occasion of living a sort of reunification of his biological body and his psychic body. The pedagogy of evolution, of change, must take into account this psychic element which enables a certain distance - to hear this « no » as a positive movement for the subject, for the coming into being of the subject, and not a violent movement against the teacher, the counsellor, the educator. This little miracle that happened during the 2013 session is not really a miracle as such. The behaviour of François probably evolved because the counselling team was able to become conscious of this movement without diminishing the importance of their careful attention and being able to understand the suffering of François – a young man adapted to the wishes of others and therefore not the doer in his own life, the non-creator of his future, and of his « becoming ». Also, thanks to their attention and supervision, the team was able to act out coherently the message that they propose to young people : to be able to live a « ME » who is different, sexual, in a relationship with another « ME », and yet to achieve this while avoiding the obstacle of responding to the defensive rejection by a similar defensive rejection – (which could have been the premature departure of François).