Psychological consultation as a transformative first clinical experience

We propose here a model of a step in the clinical process that we consider relevant and deserving of greater consideration among practitioners. Consideration and relevance are increasing, indeed, especially in the psychoanalytic world. In view of this centrality and the plurality of theoretical-clinical models present today, we believe it is useful to offer a contribution that, taking this history into account, moves forward in the conceptualisation of this first step in each patient’s clinical journey. To do this, it is necessary, in our opinion, to start by focusing on two concepts, the subject, and the care, and then to place consultation within this perimeter by giving it a specific place. While acknowledging the peculiarity of consultation when it involves certain specific age groups, childhood and adolescence in particular – groups that have given rise to some of the most innovative and well-known conceptualisations of consultation, to which we will briefly refer – this paper wishes to deal with consultation as a clinical process having a general scope. A brief exemplifying clinical vignette and a specific experience of setting up consultation in a third sector organisation will be proposed; examples which we believe help to concretise and clarify what is proposed without any claim to exhausting the complexity of possible applications.