An intruder has happily come to settle in Senegalese literary, audiovisual and cinematographic production: the psychologist. He appeared like a flower to first seek admissibility, before now imposing himself with great ease and becoming a protagonist screwed into the sofa. The psychologist has, however, always had his fictional role. But at most he was mentioned, or he wore the cassock of a relative or close friend. The new thing is that he is rediscovering himself today with his blouse and his science, as obvious as a fly in a glass of milk.
In the film “Demba” (2024) by Mamadou Dia, the psychologist intervenes by helping a man who is drifting. A widower derailed by pain and unfulfilled mourning, while clinging to denial.
Demba is dark despite all the brilliance of his environment. His disillusionment shakes his mental health, before, after two years of internal struggle against his devious demons, his “madness” comes to light. Ndeye Fatou Kane, through her book “In the Name of the Father”, confides in an intimate pen the saving effect of sessions with her psychotherapist. A fragile but necessary refuge to escape his apathetic state, following the death of his father.
In his novel “I’m leaving”, Diary Sow recounts Coura’s escape, which lightens her heart after consulting the psychologist. Through literary succulence, the late Aminata Sophie Dièye alias Ndèye Takhawalou, in her weekly column for the newspaper L’Obs, which in 2013 will be worth the collection of texts “From the drag to the saint”, convinced us about our dark sides made of madness and monstrosity. She was already directing us to the psychologist, but our reluctance towards this “purely Western and for crazy people” recourse was stubborn. She must exult in her victory from beyond the grave, now that the psychologist is so well introduced into our morals that he allows himself more seductive variations. We talk about a personal coach or a life coach.
The television series “Lady Diama” echoes this, in a drawing blurring the boundary between professional ethics and the vulnerability of the patient. But let’s move on! These examples betray uneasiness, depression. Depression, an illness curiously presented with glamor, where suffering is relegated to an aestheticized dimension.
Artistic productions, television series even better nowadays, are the echoes of our cottages, of our happiness and resentments. They reflect our experiences and offer subjectivities such as art allows in its notorious freedom. Thus, behind this presence of the psychologist, we must see the lot of discomfort that is reported.
-Why have we accepted, in recent years, this Western figure, repulsive until recently because it shows madness? Why does the psychologist find himself in demand and even sought after, what’s more, in fiction as in reality? People tend to denounce a fragmented, neurotic society. The precariousness of relationships and alliances, both family and friendly, is a reality. Trust has become fragile, if it still exists.
We increasingly embrace unbridled fantasies, and are a generation that knows vaguely what it doesn’t want but is almost entirely ignorant of what it does want. Violence is perpetrated out of defiance by a certain youth, seeing in parents and social guardians the faces of a cheating society. We are in a giant Colosseum where groups violently blame each other without questioning their own responsibilities.
The presence of the shrink in these productions is an alert. An alert like so many in artistic productions. We must be aware of the recurrences of these realizations, which provide information on determining social facts.
This is why it is imperative to strengthen arts education and promote criticism, in order to decipher the sirens of the times. Films and books should not be read only in their fantasies. These are social paintings that challenge us and invite us to reevaluate.
