Le temps multiphasique : représentations, modélisation et dynamique: De la remise en mouvement du temps dans les violences traumatiques

Abstract

A multiphasic time model, integrating the past, present and future in close interrelations, is first presented and offers a contextual approach to the perceptions and responses of an individual according to his/her personal history and environment. The present and future prospects are in continuity with the past and its consequences and effects. The past, even when it is not or no longer expressed, influences the present and the future, and this over several generations. Past life events and experiences, as well as psychological and biological states previously experienced by the individual (such as emotional states, illnesses, etc.) and his/her previous responses (adaptive or maladaptive responses, leading to failures or successes, etc.) modify, according to the individual’ s personal history, his/her current perceptions and reactions to life events and environmental stimuli. In addition, some variables influence a person's current perceptions and reactions such as environmental moderator variables (social, cultural, physical environment), current psychobiological states of the individual (emotions, motivation, etc.), and characteristics of life events and environmental stimuli (depending on whether these life events are, for example, single or repeated, predictable or unpredictable). What matters is less the life event or environmental stimulus in itself, than the individual's perception and reactivity to this event/stimulus according to the context of his/her personal history, as well as his/her current environment and psychobiological state. Moreover, the perception of the present depends not only on the traces of the past but also on our ability to project ourselves into the future and to envision it. Thus, dreams of the future allow one to escape by introducing another temporality allowing a person to disconnect from the present, to create an internal reality replacing the external reality, and to live the present differently. But the memory of the past and the representations of the future are constantly constructed and reconstructed in the present according to the emotions of the individual and his/her environment. Based on the integrative approach proposed in the multiphasic time model, the trace of the past, as well as the dream of the future, contribute to writing the present and influence the future, but the nuances of the present participate also in the reconstruction of past memory and the projection into the future, with interrelationships where all times are closely intertwined in the individual's current representations. By relying on this multiphasic time model, new perspectives for understanding and treating traumatic violence are proposed. Indeed, the representations of time that we construct are sometimes related to the perception of a frozen time that no longer flows, especially after an experience of traumatic violence. The trauma breaks into the psychic life of the individual by causing a rupture, and the perception of time is then altered. Time stops, this is the time of trauma. There is no longer multiphasic time, but there remains monophasic time frozen on the traumatic event. It can then be difficult, if not impossible, to project oneself into the future or to remember the past prior to the traumatic event. The definitions of trauma are recalled in this article and the contribution of the media to the development of trauma is, in particular, questioned. Then, from the multiphasic time model previously described, the frozen time of the trauma is reconsidered by emphasizing the interest of summoning the past and the future in the therapeutic process in order to put the temporality of the individual back in motion and continuity. More precisely, the therapy and counseling work of the therapist allow, among other things, to pass from a monophasic suspended time in which it is often necessary to welcome the individual in his/her sensoriality and corporality, to a multiphasic dynamic time in which it becomes possible for the individual to project himself/herself into the future and remember the past. The role of the group, as a containing envelope, and collective memory in the (re)construction of individual memory and self-consciousness, is also discussed. Finally, the passage from sensory fright to narrative, from traumatic sensory “cyst” to psychic elaboration, from the frozen time of trauma to the time of psychic mobilization, is developed. It is necessary to have available various therapeutic tools adapted to these different times in order to be able to reestablish a temporal, psychic and existential continuity. The effectiveness of a therapeutic approach will depend on its coherence, both for the individual and the therapist, in the context of their temporalities, resources and singularity, and of the therapeutic alliance that can develop.