Read this article published in the Cercle Psy Hors-Série « Qui sont (vraiment) les psychologues?

With the trend towards psychologizing our every behavior, shrinks have never been so present. Some are even leaving the intimacy of their practices for media exposure… What do their colleagues think?

Whether you live at the foot of a mountain in the Pyrenees or in the heart of the capital, it’s no secret that shrinks are omnipresent. From the shadows of their offices to the light of the media, from theoretical speculation to mass popularization, from individual intimacy to social malaise, shrinks are on a roll. They’re expanding their fields of expertise, and today they’re sharing their knowledge with as many people as possible. This mad rush to psychologize the general public began some thirty years ago, when the respectable Françoise Dolto took on the chronicles of the Quand l’enfant paraît program, broadcast on France Inter. Today, the presence of shrinks in the media is commonplace, and TV magazines based on personal testimonials, which a shrink is invited to meticulously dissect, abound: Vie privée, vie publique, Ça se discute, Jour après jour…

Some shrinks, acolytes of the TV screen, are now familiar to us: Serge Hefez, Serge Tisseron, Stéphane Clerget, Marcel Rufo… The written press is not to be outdone, with its women’s magazines, almost all of which include a « psycho » section. The omnipresence of shrinks on the media scene is accompanied by more frequent recourse to these specialists in « real » life:  » Shrinks are everywhere! Consulted for prevention, cure and, in any case, extensively. At the RATP to support drivers, at Peugeot to design the car of our dreams, alongside sportsmen and women (…) The shrink has conquered the monopoly of our souls. From now on, guilt or no guilt, at the slightest hiccup, we all, or almost all, go and lie down on the bed of confession and redemption: the couch. « journalists Delphine Saubaber and Natacha Czerwinski ironized back in 2005 (1).

Dominique Mehl, sociologist and CNRS research director at the Communication et Politique laboratory, distinguishes two types of shrink on the media scene: the new moralist who dispenses normative advice, and the « dresser/thinker » who offers food for thought on societal ills. And the shrinks themselves are astonished to be so much in demand:  » Where practical and social answers are needed, we psychologize. A case in point? I get a lot of referrals from bus drivers who’ve been assaulted. I told the staff doctor that the first thing to do was to fit them with bulletproof glass. « says psychiatrist and psychotherapist Jean Cottraux, in his book Visitors to the self. What are shrinks for? (2).

The evil of the century?

Is this recourse to psychology the result of a narcissistic society, excessively focused on personal and professional success and individual performance? This is the opinion of Vincent de Gaulejac, Professor of Sociology at the University of Paris VII, Director of the Laboratory of Social Change and founding member of the International Institute of Clinical Sociology:  » With the development of financial capitalism, each individual’s « I » has become a capital that must be made to bear fruit. We have entered the ideology of self-fulfillment. he declares in an interview published in Gestalt magazine(3). A tension is created between the demands of society and the difficulties of each individual in meeting these demands.And we would entrust shrinks with the onerous task of helping us meet these demands.

Another interpretation: could this tendency towards psychologizing speculation be the evil of the century, an obsession that allows us to give meaning to our overly watered-down lives?  » There are two things men don’t like: freedom and happiness. It’s easier to define ourselves by our misfortune, which serves as our identity card, than by the unknown. « François Roustang, philosopher, hypnotherapist and psychoanalyst, humorously analyzes this in his book La fin de la plainte (4).

As Salvador Dali once said, « a kick in the ass is the poor man’s psychoanalysis« . What if today’s « psych culture » were simply to take the place of the country priest, the right-hand man of our psyche, once sought after for his listening skills and sound advice?

Haro on the « pop » shrink

While the general public is fond of them, the « popular » shrink is not to everyone’s taste, and even less so that of the shrinks.  » This over-exposure is accompanied by a discourse of popularization. And the psychologist’s vulgate is not always of the highest quality; it is increasingly common to hear untruths and even scientific aberrations. « says Patrick Cohen, psychologist and director of the Centre régional d’interventions psychologiques (CRIP-Marseille) in the collective work Clinical psychology and the profession of psychologist: (De)qualification and (De)training? (5). The « pop » shrink can thus provoke hostile reactions from the profession. High-profile child psychiatrist Marcel Rufo is a good example of this phenomenon. On December 3, 2012, on France 5, he responded as follows to a listener seeking advice for her daughter who claimed to have been abused as a child: « The vast majority of abused children are fine! »After which he advised the listener to ask the designated rapist if all this was true, before believing her daughter’s « fantasies« . That was one line too many. So much so that a petition « Stop misinformation about sexual violence against children!  »was launched by the Centre de recherches internationales et de formation sur l’inceste et la pédocriminalité (Crifip): « We are outraged to hear words denying the suffering of victims, denying the truth of the frequency of sexual violence, denying the reality of the after-effects (…) We call on France 5 to take responsibility for these statements and demand a right of reply and an apology from the channel and Dr. Rufo to all the people he has cruelly hurt« .

In April 2013, journalist and novelist Erwan Desplanques wrote a scathing review in Téléramamagazine: « The repetition of his show-calibrated diagnoses – on France 3, France 5, Europe 1 and France Inter – can have undesirable effects. Rufo’s elucidations are freewheeling and he cuts too quickly (…) Why did he accept the challenge of a daily radio column? Shrinks often say that you have to learn to say no.  »

In the end, is mass psychology, which is predominantly psychoanalytic, just a way of appealing to the masses, to non-specialists in psychology? Popularize, simplify, to reach as many people as possible?  » Let’s beware: we are on the verge of being used for purposes that are not always respectful of human dignity. That’s why we must be careful to ethically contain the social exposure of psychology. « concludes Patrick Cohen. While this Psy-esque communication is a positive way of democratizing psychology among the general public, it is not without risk. Neither for users confronted with possible nonsense, nor for the profession itself, blurred by the preconceived ideas of a distorted psychology. Let’s hear it… ∞

(1) Delphine Saubaber and Natacha Czerwinski, « Attend-on trop des psys? », L’Express, July 18 2005, available at www.lexpress.fr
(2) Odile Jacob, 2004.
(3) Exchange with Vincent de Gaulejac, « Ne pas psychologiser les problèmes sociaux »,Gestalt, n° 29, 2005/2.
(4) François Roustang, La fin de la plainte, Odile Jacob, 2009.
(5) Patrick Ange Raoult (ed.), Clinical psychology and the profession of psychologist: (De)qualification and (De)training? L’Harmattan, 2005.