[Apropos of mother-child hospitalizations: mother-child hospitalization in a child psychology service].

Mother-child hospitalization is still rarely practiced in child psychiatric services. The experience of this kind of care in the child and adolescent psychopathology service in the Herold Hospital (Paris), however, demonstrates its interest. It permits one to respect the bond of attachment and proves to be a useful instrument of psychiatric evaluation of children, particularly in greater diagnostic precision to which the observation of the mother-child unit also contributes. The conjoint hospitalization, however, involves some risks, which can be anticipated in pre-hospitalization work up: repercussion on the family, difficulties in the functioning of the care taking team, and especially the impact on the mother of the hospitalization which creates a real crisis situation which must be handled in order to be able to use the maturative possibilities.