Claire Carrier has developped a new type of therapy which combines two apparently very different technics : that of scuba-diving, and that of psychoanalysis. There are however several elements which these two technics have in common, from both an individual and interpersonal point of view. These underlying similarities allow for a widened approach to a variety of psychological difficulties. The author explains and develops the various aspects of the two technics in order to clearly present the way in which thay can be used in "partnership" to provide worthwile therapeutical results.

The notion of "passages" from one state to another, on both the physical and fantasy level, brings the author to study the impact of this new type of therapy on adolescents, precisely because they are at a stage in development which calls upon the notion of passage, and which demands that the individual be able to accept transformation and yet retain the continuity of his own being.

The theoretical support for this therapeutic action is founded upon a psychoanalytical framework, but relies largely on the author’s personnal experiences as pediatrical training, a psychiatist, and an expert on scuba-diving technics, as well as her concurrent therapeutic action and research in a French national center where top-level adolescent athletic champions are trained.