Cyrulnik: "psychotropic, a cultural symptom" Interviewed by Anne-Laure BARRET Le Journal du Dimanche Boris Cyrulnik, a psychiatrist and neurologist (1), is best known for having developed the concept of "resilience" (revival of his suffering). At the side of fourteen major doctors, he committed against the abuse of psychotropic drugs in an appeal launched by the magazine Psychologies and relayed by the JDD. For him, evil-being should not be surmédicalisé ... Boris Cyrulnik is one of 15 signatories of the appeal published in Psychologies Magazine. (Maxppp) On the same subject The Prozac, a placebo effect? Symptoms of depression Should we ban psychotropic? There are people that psychotropic save. There are melancholy that, without antidepressants, would be unable to leave their bed and could not go see a doctor. There are delirious who suffer greatly and who are suffering enormously around them and are relieved by antipsychotic drugs. There are patients who are tortured by alternating between euphoria and manic depression and melancholy that are stabilized so amazing on lithium. For all these people, psychotropic drugs are vital. But that does not-on the contrary it helps psychotherapy-which is the real treatment. And other consumers of psychotropic drugs, are they all sick? They are not sick but they have existential anxieties which no one escapes and they face in taking medication. It is a cultural symptom. It emphasizes the chemical tranquillisation, we forget the tranquillisation verbal, relational. The abuse of psychotropic prescription is a testimony of our cultural failure. Our culture also offers incentives for chemical bringing children into the world, win the Olympics and better work. Before codait on human relations, there were rituals, now there are fewer rituals and we see teenagers drink alcohol, take drugs, simply for daring to court a girl. Apart from anxiety, people affected by chronic fatigue can they not be helped with medicines? Very often these are chronic fatigue small depression. Many are due to physical inactivity in which we live. Contrary to the intellectual effort, physical effort causes the secretion of endorphin, which is a euphorisante. People are tired with their work because they use far less of their body than before. Beyond the negative consequences of Western individualism, how do you explain that the French consume more psychotropic their European neighbours? The English consumed much less than us until the day they calculated that the work stoppages costing them more expensive than the prescription of these drugs. The French overconsumption is surely related to the functioning of our social security system and the training of our general. According to the Cnam, generalists prescribe psychotropic too. Are they trained? At university, they are taught to prescribe psychotropic drugs. For they require less would give them a real psychological training, which is far from the case. What about the problems caused by weaning tranquilizers? It is less tranquilisers only hitch to alcohol, cigarettes or cannabis, products valued culturally. There is a dependency when, in human existence, there is no other way. If there is a meaning to life, we come to stop these drugs. This is not the opinion of the majority of psychiatrists but I think we can easily stop these drugs once they begin psychotherapy, as soon as people come to give meaning to their lives. I had such a patient engineer who could not stop his tranquilizers. It took many years. He found a job in a magnificent Arab Emirates with a stupendous salary and working conditions of existence and formidable. He was bothered before departure because he knew he could not find there. I've prescribed him in a box. A few months later, he wrote me to tell me that when he was hired in his new existence, it had completely stopped tranquilizers without dependence. This is proof that we must never reduce the human condition at its chemical. "Find happiness is already the beginning of happiness" What alternatives to drugs would you? There are many: the emotional solidarity, development of community life, work of art (film, reading), walking and eventually psychotherapy. All these cultural mechanisms are natural tranquilizers to humans. Anything that breaks the loneliness - which is the surest way to become anxious and depressed-east course. Who are intended psychotherapies? The psychotherapy, it means treating a soul. It was all need. It does not mean we have all need a psychiatrist or a psychologist but we all need to explain, love, read, go see a football match. Psychotherapy is inherent in the human condition. Every human being can not live unless it has around him another, another. It is the emotional solidarity that causes this culturally psychotherapy. Sometimes there have been tragedies in our lives or difficulties in developing our culture which does not provide for reparations. In this case, we can go see a psychotherapist. How to find a good psychotherapist? You can seek advice from a general practitioner or a friend. They say psychotherapy to go fast but this is a shortcut: there are dozens of different psychotherapies therapist and each has its own method. What counts is the encounter between a person who suffers and who is seeking another person able to help them decentre itself to understand his suffering and better defend themselves in life. Should we regulate the profession? I am very uncomfortable with this issue. On the one hand, it is not necessary to be a doctor to be a good psychotherapist. On the other hand, are found in the middle of charlatans who should be banned from exercising. Children and adolescents consume too psychotropic? There are children at a developmental extreme turmoil, most of the time, can be managed by the adult through listening and speaking. In a very small number of cases, however, we see children protected by the drugs. The requirements are very guarded, there is not much of overconsumption. But the problem with children is that the prediction is very difficult to do. There are very impaired children who, after adolescence, young adults are becoming balanced, peaceful. It is unlike young balanced, easy-which, after adolescence, switch and go through years of great suffering. And when a young person suffers, it is suffering around him. Can we learn to be happy? You can learn to seek happiness what is already the beginning of happiness. But the pursuit of happiness is a recent requirement since date of the French Revolution. It is believed that happiness is an entity, something in itself, while many cultures believe that we can not be happy on earth. The Christian Western culture, for example, said that the passage on earth is a valley of tears between two paradise, a paradise lost and paradise to find if it was wise on earth. The pursuit of happiness, recently, paradoxically causes a lot of unhappiness
