“Faced with individual trauma, resilience depends on the entire nation”

The terrorist attacks which bloodied Paris and its immediate suburbs in 2015 shed harsh light on violence and its share of trauma. They have contributed to bringing psychological trauma to the forefront in our societies, to better understanding it and measuring its consequences on the mental functions and on the future of the people who are victims of it. Trauma and its complex consequences are today better described and analyzed.

Thus, trauma is defined as a violent shock, for which the subject is not prepared and which confronts him with death or serious injury. Trauma is not reduced to the event itself, it also refers to the specificities of the person exposed and their adaptation capacities, which can lead to psychopathology, post-traumatic stress disorder (or PTSD). ) being the most common. PTSD is therefore a very specific psychopathology because it results from a chance encounter between a singular person and an extreme situation, the consequences of which are all the more severe as they involve other individuals who have knowingly sought to harm, or even to harm the lives of others.

Conversely, social support, both immediately after the traumatic event, but also in the long term, that is to say several months, even several years after the events, is the main lever which will help the victim evolve. on the path to resilience.

Levers to cope and rebuild

The “November 13” research program, which we run with historian Denis Peschanski, focuses on the construction and evolution of individual and collective memories of the terrorist attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris and Saint-Denis. This longitudinal program, started in 2016 and planned until 2028, currently includes around ten studies. It has the particularity of having been built in close collaboration with victims’ associations, which partly gives it its reason for being.

This immense project, whose primary mission is to produce scientific knowledge, is also a deep and unique meeting place between research teams and participants. Together, they have worked for almost ten years to better understand the consequences of exposure to an extreme traumatic event, adjust the means of assistance to deal with it, and provide indications to guide public policies in matters of prevention and health. public and preparation for risky professions.

The “November 13” program, since its launch in April 2016, but in fact since its infancy from the first days of astonishment after the killings, has put in place ways to understand the consequences of psychological trauma, in the long term. , in individual individuals and in society as a whole. In this way, it provides levers to cope and rebuild oneself.

Post-traumatic stress disorder

PTSD is characterized by several long-lasting symptoms including intrusions, which bring elements of the traumatic scene back to the present, and avoidance of these which can cut the victim off from loved ones and other potential supports, such that the person locks himself in a compartmentalized world. Neuropsychology highlights the omnipresence of the emotional and sensory aspects of traumatic memory, which contrasts with a failure to remember the contextual aspects of the event.

Emotional memory disorders thus have their source in the trauma and extend to the structure and contents of autobiographical memory and projection into the future, including for non-traumatic events. When this trauma is collective, it intrudes into the memories of more or less large groups, and even throughout society as a whole. Understanding these complex phenomena is essential to adapt our social structures and provide support to victims.

Within the “November 13” program, certain studies show the effects of these attacks on our entire society and their evolution over time. Thus, traumatic memory presents itself as a particular form of vivid memory which determines the future of the person who is the victim, but with notable inter-individual differences. The reasons which lead to these various developments are also multiple: some are linked to the person themselves and relate to epigenetics, their past experiences (before the trauma), their personality, their choices after the trauma. trauma.

Individual and collective traumatic memories

What is built around the victim also plays a crucial role. This environment includes the family, circles of friends, work relationships, etc. In the event of collective trauma, it concerns the entire nation, and even beyond for events that will mark history. A consequence of recent decades, which have established the pre-eminence of trauma, is to have brought together various disciplines towards trauma and the paths to resilience.

Determinism is not the key word since the victim develops strategies to try to overcome the consequences of this trauma. The subject is not alone with the more or less invasive traces of this trauma. The possibilities for personal development linked to external factors are numerous: therapeutic interventions, social support, recognition of victims, etc. The modifications in the individual memory of victims must be understood in connection with the evolution of the memories which are written around them. them, in different collective circles and in society as a whole. It is in this way that the victims will leave barbarity and the shame of man in the background and regain confidence in humanity.