Youth is commonly considered as a period of transition, from a situation of dependence upon one’s family to a situation of autonomy. This takes place according to several steps: leaving the family’s nest, acquiring financial independence through employment and creating one’s own familial unit.This thesis aims at describing the passages according to which young people with mental disorders move onto adulthood. On top of the individual and collective ordeal that is becoming an adult exists another difficulty, which is no less shared: dealing with mental disorders. In a context in which the demand for autonomy and self-fulfilment increasingly influences individual paths, the passage to adulthood is a critical step. On the one hand are the tensions resulting from relations of dependence that are inherent to childhood, and on the other hand is the collective effort to manage the disability. These run up against the challenges of the access to a compensated activity and, thus, financial independence.The objective of this research is to understand the collective construction of this passage in a situation of mental disorder or disability while taking into account what is at stake at different levels. First the individual level: empowerment, experiencing and dealing with the disorders, getting involved in society and accessing facilities, defining a project. Then the relational level: collective management of the disease’s evolution, care and support. Finally the institutional level: defining mental disorders, support facilities, autonomy established as an institutional rule, the patients’/ users’ status in the psychiatric, sanitarian, medico-social, judicial and social facilities.
