More generally, pleads the psychologist, the school system should doubtless open up more to the notion of well-being, used in the world of work but still absent from preoccupations concerning our teenagers at school. Nonetheless certain of them are harassed or are experiencing difficult situations without being able to, as an adult can, project themselves into the future in changing their present. ‘In an institutional manner, and together with the teachers, it should be possible to think through the ways of living together at school,’ insists Aurore Boulard, who thus suggests that support groups should be set up within secondary schools on a regular basis.

The psychologist also highlights the value of raising awareness concerning heightened vigilance as to a change which leads the teenager to become irritable, talk back, fight or panic in disproportionate ways at exam time. ‘It would be worth thinking about this change in behaviour and to try to see whether or not a malaise is taking root in the young person, with the risk of major depression,’ she says.

She would also like to examine other pathways born from the thinking through process of her thesis: ‘It is currently estimated that half or two thirds of the young people who go through a bout of severe depression come through it. For the others from 2 to 3% find themselves in hospital. Why are only certain young people hospitalised? To explain this situation, a hypothesis related to social ties deserves to be verified: every hospitalised teenager says that they have experienced difficult life events within the family, but those who remain in school do the same. The difference between the two groups could lie in the young people who remain in school maintaining social ties outside their family or from the energy they still find to try and create them. If these social ties fades they no longer have anything to hold onto and the possibility of hospitalisation rises.’

The psychologist is also interested in another question: what happens to depressed teenagers, but who are not hospitalised, and who do not manage to get through their illness? Certain of them, she thinks, could take a path leading towards delinquency, in turning their aggressiveness against others. Yet, particularly as far as boys are concerned, it is not necessarily thought that depression can be externalised towards delinquent behaviour. ‘I would like to begin a new study with the following theme: does depression precede delinquency and, if it is the case, in what percentage of cases?’

In awaiting such further studies the highlighting in the thesis of two important variables – judgement and perceived pubertal timing – should allow depression amongst teenagers to be better understood. ‘This research has shown that exclusion, verbal attacks and the feeling of being judged by one’s peers play a major role in the wellbeing of the teenager, who is thus often isolated. In addition their depressive mood gives off signals of weakness conducive to attacks and the establishment of harassment situations which, added to minimal social relations, are strongly linked to depressive feelings and thoughts of suicide (above all amongst girls),’ points out the psychologist. Put in that way, one can understand why Aurore Boulard talks of the presence of a genuine depressive spiral.

As in the Titanic, which the water invades deck by deck, progressively causing the shipwreck, the young are caught up in a vortex within which, little by little, it become one thing after another and leads them towards depression: they go through family difficulties or life events which lead to a depressive mood and behavioural changes, with irritability, instability or aggressiveness. Often they then try to cling onto their schooling and prosocial and reassurance seeking behaviour. But that does not prevent – on the contrary, at times – problems with peers which in their turn are at the root of exclusion and school failures. Added together, these elements act as extra vulnerability factors. One deck after another, everything ships water before sinking. Aurore Boulard’s thesis should provide weapons to all those who refuse merely to be a part of the orchestra, waiting for the shipwreck...