BY MEG LAUGHLIN

 Many Cuban exiles in Miami worry that Elian Gonzalez will not return to a normal family life in Cardenas, Cuba, that he will instead become a marionette, totally controlled by Fidel Castro. But a team of Havana psychiatrists and psychologists is urging the return of Elian to his family, friends and schoolmates in Cardenas because, they say, it's vital that he be placed back in a familiar context.

 When the child returns, he will be ''damaged,'' ''traumatized'' and ''in a very high-risk situation,'' said Patricia Ares, head of family psychology at the University of Havana. Damaged ''because he has lived through the most traumatic events a young child could live through.

 ''He watched the death of his mother. He was involved in a disaster situation himself. He lost his family. And he lost his context . . . his environment -- his neighborhood, his school.''

 But in Miami, two psychologists who have talked to Elian say he will be harmed if he returns to Cuba.

 Alina Lopez-Gottardi and Mitch Spero told reporters last week that the child should remain in Miami because he has grown closely attached to his relatives here and fears his father's temper.

 ''Elian has expressed that his father freely expresses his anger out of control and in an abusive manner in specific instances,'' said Lopez-Gottardi, who has been seeing Elian since December. Spero, who spoke with Elian on Wednesday, said the boy ''meets many of the criteria for post-traumatic syndrome'' and predicted that if he is separated from his cousin, Marisleysis Gonzalez, ''he'll suffer irreversible emotional damage.''

 But in Cuba, experts had other views.

 Elsa Nunez, researcher at the Ministry of Education in Havana, said she believed that Elian's phone request to his father soon after he arrived in Miami -- ''Take care of my desk, take care of my books'' -- was the child's way of saying, ''Take care of my things. Take care of my life over there. Take care of my context.''

 This is exactly what Nunez, along with a team of Havana psychiatrists and psychologists, have said publicly that they hope will happen -- that the boy will return to his former life in Cardenas -- despite predictions to the contrary by many Cuban exiles in Miami.

 Havana Adolescent Clinic Director Elsa Gutierrez: ''He should come back and be a child like every Cuban child. He should be hunting lizards, carrying marbles and stones in his pockets, studying and living happily. Anything else is demagogy, outrage and child abuse.''