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Interview with Boris Cyrulnik

Director of studies at the Université du Sud, Toulon-Var

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2018

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Abstract

Boris Cyrulnik is a neuropsychiatrist who is known in France for having developed and popularized the concept of resilience. Born to a Jewish family in Bordeaux in 1937, he lost both his parents during the Second World War and, at the age of 6, escaped deportation himself by hiding during a round-up of Jews organized by the Nazis. His recollections of that event, forty years after the end of the war, provided the foundations for a reflection on post-war traumatic memory. In this interview for the Review, he talks about the relationship between memory, trauma and resilience, both at an individual and a collective level.

Keywords

memorytraumaemotional responsedenialnarrativeresilience
Type
Interview
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 101 , Issue 910: Memory and war , April 2019 , pp. 11 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © icrc 2018 

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Footnotes

This interview was held at Seyne-sur-Mer, France, on 7 April 2017, and was conducted by Paul Bouvier, Senior Medical Adviser at the International Committee of the Red Cross; Vincent Bernard, Editor-in-Chief of the Review; and Thematic Editor Audrey MacKay.

References

1 Editor's note: The MOE, also known as the Main-d’Œuvre Immigrée, was an association of immigrant workers set up by communist organizations in the 1920s in France, which was actively involved in the French Resistance during the Second World War. Further information is available at: www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/fr/les-etrangers-dans-la-resistance.

2 Editor's note: In June 1940, the three Régiments de Marche des Volontaires Étrangers held off the German advance for a number of days in certain parts of France. They were nicknamed the “string regiments” because their lack of proper equipment forced them to use string instead of a strap for their guns.

3 Editor's note: Shoah is a French documentary film released in 1985. It was directed by Claude Lanzmann and contains nine hours of interviews with witnesses of the Holocaust.

4 Editor's note: In 1995, Jacques Chirac became the first French president to acknowledge the role played by the French State in the deportation and extermination of Jews during the Second World War.

5 Schwarz-Bart, André, Le dernier des Justes, Seuil, Paris, 1959Google Scholar.

6 Editor's note: Emmy Werner is an American developmental psychologist, born in 1929, who specializes in the field of resilience and carried out the first studies of resilience in children. The study referred to here is the Kaua’i Longitudinal Study, which continues to this day. The study has resulted in many publications: see, for example, Werner, Emmy, Bierman, Jessie and French, Fern, The Children of Kauai: A Longitudinal Study from the Prenatal Period to Age Ten, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, HI, 1971Google Scholar; Werner, Emmy, “Findings from the Kauai Longitudinal Study”, Research, Policy, and Practice in Children’s Mental Health, Vol. 19, No. 1, 2005Google Scholar.

7 Editor's note: On 13 November 2015, three men armed with assault rifles shot into the crowd at Bataclan, a theatre in Paris, killing ninety and injuring several hundred. Other attacks were carried out on the same day at cafes and restaurants in the city, as well as around the Stade de France.

8 Editor's note: The SAMU Social is the French emergency humanitarian service.

9 Xavier Emmanuelli is a French doctor and politician who founded the SAMU Social in Paris and is the co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières.

10 Françoise Sironi is a French psychologist who specializes in torture, and whose works deal with victims and executioners.

11 Editor's note: Harkis are Muslim Algerians who served in the French army during the Algerian war of independence.

12 Haynal, André, Rentchnick, Pierre and Senarclens, Pierre de, Les orphelins mènent-ils le monde?, Livre de Paris, Bagneux, 1979Google Scholar.

13 The 3rd World Congress on Resilience took place from 22 to 24 August 2016 at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, in Canada.