Among the migrants who come to Switzerland seeking asylum, there are more and more young refugees, even minors, sometimes unaccompanied. These young people may combine different risk factors for their mental health: pre- per- or post-migratory traumas, distance from family and cultural references, environmental precariousness or relational isolation. But they are also in the midst of a transition from childhood to adulthood, a period of life made up of questions of identity, processes of differentiation and movements of empowerment. These ad-olescent movements, while unique, are always closely intertwined with family and cultural/religious parameters of the home group. In the home country, the adolescent process takes place in a familiar community setting and questions the markers of the cultural background. On the contrary, in exile, at a distance from the original landmarks and confronted with new values, these processes may be considerably complicated by the "external" confrontation with cultural differences that will have its resonances in the "internal" of the psychic functioning. In order to take these variables into account, ethnopsychoanalytical psychotherapy will target both the cultural and psychic levels, in order to support the young person in exile in his sub-jectivation process.
Keywords: Ethnopsychoanalysis, migration, asylum, adolescence, culture.