JDNews. You made yourself known to the general public at the time of the covid, by ringing the alarm on the mental health of children. What do you remember from this period?
Marie-Estelle Dupont. In 2020, the whole world was shaken by the COVIR, and children and adolescents were the main victims. I alerted very early to this watch that watched. I warned, in 2021, that we would have young or very violent or depressed. Some replied that I was alarmist. Now today, the observation is clear: our society is psychologically ill!
You arrive on Europe 1 at the end of August, in a new program with Romain Desarbres…
I chose to call this program “And if we were talking!” »» We will approach social subjects and more personal subjects, always related to news: violence, harassment, family, divorce, education or decrease in fertility in France. I am happy to be able to talk about psychology on a great listening radio, because human health is not reduced to its physical dimension. Before the covid, the psyche was little discussed in the media. Many French people suffer from mental disorders, sometimes difficult to make aware, and suffering is also related to the environment. My ambition is to give keys to help get to know each other better, to better understand what you experience and to be able to overcome your difficulties.
We recently heard you comment on the ultraviolence that affects France. Do we live in a psychologically affected society?
Society has been sick, not for five years, but about forty years. The definition it gives itself of the human being, its anthropology, is materialist and reduces human beings to the status of consumer and taxpayers. The sacred and spiritual dimension of man is erased, in the same way as his relational and affective dimension. We are moving towards dehumanization, anteroom of violence. This results in poor choices in education, justice or teaching. Frenched individualism denies the relational dimension of existence, leading to the war of all against all of which Hobbes spoke.
“Human nature is by definition violent and imperfect”
Isn’t the problem more political than psychological?
One leads to the other. We brought together all the dysfunctions so that people go badly, whether they are depressed, sad or in burnout. At the same time, they were removed what is vital for man, his links with others, for the benefit of market value, performance. Human nature is by definition violent and imperfect. The company must provide it with an improvement framework, but the conditions are not met.
We are witnessing a disturbing trivialization of violence. Young profane adolescents, attack the elderly, torture and humiliate other young people. Is there still a limit to barbarism?
We also pay the broken pots of May-68: the idea that “It is forbidden to ban” made the immediate desire tyrannical. But the adult who does not tolerate frustration will never do anything big. This puts children and adults on the same level. However, the child needs the prohibition to find their bearings and develop a balance between excessive timidity and uncontrollable wild. When you love your child, you offer him limits. Love is not sentimentalism, it is courage. This frenzied individualism made man alone and manipulable and depreciated life.
These barbarism acts committed by young people are to be compared with certain decisions taken by our policies for forty years. We have constitutionalized the right to abortion without even threatened, we want to condemn doctors who refuse to euthanize their patients … There is violence in the paradigm of progress, which constantly seeks to facilitate death. We cannot move from these barbaric acts while conveying deadly values. If life is sacred, let’s give an example. Our young people are the future of the world.
Some accuse screens, video games, pornography …
It is the tree that hides the forest. The screens are amplifiers, but if our children are in front of screens, we must ask themselves what they took the place. Sport, link “In real life”reading, time in contact with nature, time at the table to laugh and chat with his to build his thought. The screens fill the void we leave in the transmission. We cannot discard the screens without questioning ourselves: how we work so that they develop real social skills, real self-confidence, that they do not feel all-powerful or helpless? With a narrative of permanent crisis that undermines hope? Surely not!
How to stem this violence?
The solution will not come from outside. Everyone has their role to play in introspection and individual effort. For children, let’s play our role as parents. The school also has a role to play. One of the best tools is to allow young people to feel capable. The school must therefore become demanding again. You have to give reading, dictations, mathematics. The school and the family unit are complementary. Salvation will come from a conjunction of the family, institutions and public authorities which must review the anthropology in which we live.
