COMMENT NE PLUS ÊTRE UNE VICTIME DE SON PASSÉ ?

The fact of recognizing what happened to us should not make us victims. The victim's identity says that it happened to me and I am powerless against it. To be able to solve the problem, we must start by renouncing the victim's identity. So healing consists of recognizing what happened, looking at it straight in the eye, stopping denying it, but also making sure that it does not define who we are, how we move forward and how we see the world. Because, once again, trauma is not what happened to you, but what happened to you after what happened to you. In the legal system, if one of my patients is caught in a blatant crime, selling a can of cocaine, he will go to jail. But if you are a company that deliberately sells toxic substances, which kill hundreds of thousands of people, you are considered a prosperous company. If you are the manager of a pharmaceutical company, whose products deliberately create a dependence on people and kill hundreds of thousands of people, you are rewarded with significant profits and large dividends. Whereas if you sell a gram of heroin, you are thrown in jail for, maybe for the rest of your life in this country. So you know, if the legal system understood that most incarcerated people are actually traumatized people, that violence, drug use, etc. are the consequences of a trauma, we could then create a new system that rehabilitates people, who treat their trauma, who help them to recover and overcome their problems. And I mean, it's possible, we know how to do it. And it's not about apologizing for what they did, it's about finding a way to move forward so that they don't start again. This is what we call rehabilitation. Tell me about your problem and let's see how we can help you in the short term so that you don't suffer. When we have stabilized your condition, could you tell us about your living conditions that contributed to the appearance of this disease? After that, can we talk about your childhood? Can we talk about your relationship with your partner? Can we talk about your level of stress? Can we talk about the way you feel in your skin? Can we talk about what your marriage looks like? We know, for example, that stressful marriages affect people's immune system. So these questions are very relevant. But the thing is, most doctors don't even know how to ask these questions. When we talk about trauma, one thing worries me and I would like to know your point of view on the subject. It's... It's the idea that the feeling of victimization can lead to... to impotence. Because today, in our time, people celebrate, in a way, the status of victim. It's a bit like if there was a permanent contest to know who is the biggest victim and that people forge an identity around that. Well, as you said, the boundary between the two is very thin. Because in this society, a lot of people are traumatized. And so, the more we recognize it, the better it is. And I'm always very happy when a celebrity comes out of the shadows and says that she was traumatized or sexually abused or injured, that it really affected her life and fed her addictions or that it accelerated her illness or feeds her depression. It's... It's important. But also, as you say, and it's something I talk about in my book, it doesn't mean that we should identify ourselves as victims. The fact of recognizing what happened to us shouldn't make us victims. The identity of victim says that It happened to me and I'm powerless against it. To be able to solve the problem, we have to start by renouncing the identity of victim. So yes, I was a Jewish child traumatized by the Nazis. It's my reality. I can't do anything about it. It's what happened. But I don't have to live the rest of my life according to what I lived at that particular time. So healing is about recognizing what happened, looking it straight in the eyes, stopping denying it, but also making sure that it doesn't define who we are, how we move forward, and how we see the world. Because trauma, once again, it's not what happened to you, but it's what happened to you after what happened to you. And that's the good news. Because if trauma was what happened to you and that someone sexually abused you or that your parents died in the war, if that was trauma, there's nothing to do to change what happened and you'd be condemned to suffer forever. But if trauma is the wound you suffered internally, then you can heal that wound at any time. Thus, recognizing that trauma is an internal psychological wound manifesting in our body allows us to heal. And it's completely inappropriate, unscientific, and cruel to blame anyone. It won't help you at all. Claiming that I have a dependency or even that I am dependent supposes that there is this thing called dependency, then there is me, and that I have this thing. But dependency is not a distinct thing that I have. It's a process that takes place inside of me. Which means that if I change the process, I have a way to affect this thing that we call disease, or dependency, or whatever else. So, it's more or less a separation between me and what happens in me. And I mean even in language. I am a drug addict. Identify the person with a particular habit or a particular dysfunction. Well, there is there is a certain honesty and a certain value to recognize these things because it means that you are no longer in denial. So it's a good thing. But there is also a risk with that. It's that people start to identify with a particular set of behaviors and a particular set of patterns. A person is not his dysfunction. It's not what we are concretely. No one is a victim. No one is a drug addict. No one is none of that. Let's examine the word recovery. What does it mean? It means find something. When you find something, you find it. If I talk to someone who is detached from an addiction or even a disease, I will ask him What did you find? And he answers me I found myself. Which is the main theme of my book. Namely that the loss of self in this culture is the source of the pathology. And so, it is always possible to find this inner part of yourself. Because even someone who drinks a lot of alcohol, if he says I am an alcoholic, I will tell him No, you are not. It's not what you are. You are just a person who suffers so much right now that you use alcohol to make up for your pain. It's not It's not what you are. And that allows you to recognize the truth without identifying the person to his behavior. Thank you.