What if everything gets better while writing? The advice of psychologist Neila Chidyak

In his new book. Healing Scripture, War Injuries, and Literature (Editor: Odile Jacob), Neila Chidiak, a clinical psychologist, delves deeper into a topic she has covered before. overcoming trauma through literary exercises.Relevant writing to move beyond what is buried within you.She approached this practice from her early years by opening therapeutic writing workshops in Saint-Anne, where she began.

And he continues it in his office. Therefore, his new work breaks through this practice, but through literature devoted to the war. , we wanted to meet him.

From the beginning he gives the choice of the interview location, an office where he admits and which he shows us, pointing out the fact that his patients are sitting on a sofa that overlooks a huge library or a living room I’m not,” he invites us into the living room, while apologizing for the intense busyness that contrasts with the office.

“It’s my Lebanese side,” he says, recalling the living rooms filled with furniture typical of Beirut and his origins, and also emphasizing that they are manifested through tropism, not trauma; “I have been dealing with my trauma for a long time,” he will say. As for others, they seem to dwell in him, just as a book can long haunt one who immerses himself in it.

Madame Figaro . – Why did you write a book about war and how to heal from it?
Neyla Chidiak. – Very slowly, in my practice, I realized that war is both my personal and professional subject. I am writing a poem and I realized that the constant theme is war. I also had an intuition of disintegration and various mental disturbances after Ukraine, I was afraid that wars would multiply… This intuition came to me from all the disturbances I encountered; we live in a century where everything has to move a lot. fast, where our thinking is constantly interrupted. How do you want to release it, if it is constantly stopped? This is taking steps. I see society, different symptoms and neurotic, psychotic symptomatology changing a little. And I wondered how it could be mitigated if there was another war, but literature has always been a wall against collapse.

What changes in thinking have you noticed?
Pain in the mind due to lack of time to think. We didn’t see that much before. There are many symptoms, and something prominent with the continuous interruption of the mind. Ask someone about their reading and they will often tell you: “I don’t have time to read.” Swedish research has shown that when you’re immersed in cognitive tasks, your brain needs twenty minutes to be in. If your phone rings, or someone knocks is the door, then it takes another twenty minutes to complete the task. I don’t know many people who don’t experience these thought interruptions…

We live in an age where everything has to move very fast, where our thinking is constantly interrupted. How do you want to let it go if it stops all the time?

Neila Chidiak

How do you use writing as therapy?
It is an offer. I ask my patients if they write, and I suggest doing exercises from time to time. No academic or literary workshop. You don’t have to put the writer at risk, it’s just a stretched rod, and I start with very simple exercises lasting a few minutes. If they find a specialty, it’s their story. One of my colleagues uses clay that works well for patients who are extremely intellectually framed. That said, writing is a tool you can have in shelters or inside a tank. Apollinaire, in the trenches, wrote on his cigarette packs. Other art forms are not always available, while paper and pencil…

What works better: reading or writing?
I would say read AND write. You have to open your horizons, while writing closes them. That’s why I was interested in offering several ways of writing in the book, so that the reader can find the one he likes writes, for example, collecting testimonies. Waidi Muawad writes theater. The more you write in different ways without wanting to become an author, the more you can think from different perspectives instead of being locked into the same loop that would say: I’m not going to make it.” Also, in fiction, the other will give me a solution that I wouldn’t have found myself. In fact, you are active by writing. While reading, you are active and passive, but even more passive. That is why both are necessary.

We must understand that there is always light

Neila Chidiak

What are the horizons after war trauma?
We must understand that there is always light. If we persevere, there are solutions, something beautiful happens at the given moment, friendships emerge, great authors are revealed… Dark and dark periods are not forever.

When do you realize you have war trauma?
From the moment when you no longer act as before, when you are disturbed, when you are no longer able to love. There is this feeling inside you that tells you that you no longer love your job, your children, your partner… The ability to love is inhibited, and so is the ability to think. Some consult neurologists thinking they have a memory problem problems, early Alzheimer’s, when they have nothing at all, but their trauma means they can’t remember anything.

Can trauma be revealed through writing?
Yes, it happened for the incest case, but also for the people who came after the explosion of August 4, 2020, which destroyed part of Beirut or AZF in Toulouse in 2001. One trauma was a screen for another trauma writing can also be dangerous. If you are the only one who writes dark things, it can have consequences. Some scenes are not always pleasant to remember. That’s why I always introduce reading. Poetry, in particular, in very difficult times; it allows us to be in some gentle extinction.

Dark times don’t last forever

Neila Chidiak

Does writing change a patient’s thinking?
Some people who can’t think about something too painful tame their thinking through fiction. Writing allows you to hold yourself for a moment. We manage to create intimacy, a connection between the body and the mind. Because there has often been separation and this act allows for reunification.

What’s the difference between catharsis and resilience, a word you say you don’t like?
Catharsis is very easy to use. We often think we just need to write or draw, and presto, it gets better. Actually, this is just the first step. Catharsis removes the bandage, but then you have to treat it or you can bleed and you can die. And then there is what I want: to surpass myself. That is why the author who writes only about his experience remains in development. From the moment he reaches fiction, he gets better. This is my theory, I have also observed this: if we want to heal, we talk about our trauma, and then we manage to write about something else. One of the characteristics of trauma is repetition. For example, a woman who is a victim of incest may repeat the same choice of men…

Is fiction the final stage of healing?
It depends on who. Don’t forget Jorge Semprun, who took fifteen years before he could write Scripture or life after the camps. He said it took him all this time to not have the courage to say it, but to know how to say it. He said that if he didn’t talk about it, it would catch up to him, and if he did, it would catch up to him have time to write yourself.Virginia Woolf wrote Own room but today we say that we need time. it’s time for us to write our own notebook. It doesn’t solve everything, but it makes it easier.

Does writing work as medicine outside of therapy?
Yes, absolutely. I also wanted to write this book to remind you that even if many wars start, it is still possible to endure. And in order to save it, it needs to be read and written. It’s like a crutch. And it works outside of wars, of course.