Franck recounts his childhood with a paedophile journalist. Sequences of photos recreated and arranged like a photo novel show his life with this beloved guardian, who saved him from an absent mother by introducing him to a rock “n” roll lifestyle. In sessions with his psychiatrist, Franck struggles to identify what he experienced: in order to survive, his brain assimilated the discourse of his paedophile. This discourse became even more ingrained in him because Franck’s brain was dissociated: the amygdala, the seat of emotions, was disconnected from his hippocampus, the seat of memory. Franck minimises the violence of his past, but his life bears witness to suffering and destruction: this is his reality, his truth. The discourse is what was imposed on him. The therapeutic work is to separate the two. By removing these colonising thoughts, Franck frees himself and begins a process of healing.
Why is Melissa attracted to violent sexual encounters with strangers, when her boyfriend, whom she loves, cannot touch her? From the very first session, Melissa asks the question: ‘Could I have forgotten the rapes I suffered as a child?’ Some clues are provided in her photo novel, such as the incestuous dreams that have haunted her since childhood, or a feeling of great danger that has always been with her. And the fellatio she performed at the age of 9 on a boy of the same age. Clearly, something happened. The question is: what? The young woman is suffering from traumatic amnesia. Will she rediscover, over the course of the sessions, what she endured as a child and which, although buried in her memory, continues to distort her sexual relationships? Can her memory be forced? And if not, can she be freed from her symptoms?
Young Ella, fleeing her mother’s violence, took refuge in a video game where her avatar was virtually raped by a male avatar. In reconstructed images from the game, we discover how she was manipulated. In therapy, Ella understands that the repeated violence she suffered at home explains why the slightest stress sets off an alarm in her brain, causing it to shut down. She finds herself numb, unable to spot predators and escape them. Ella is searching for maternal affection. But her mother is even more reluctant to give it to her since she realised that her daughter was spending entire nights on the internet playing at being raped. The mother realises that despite the virtual nature of the rapes, her daughter has been exposed to a man who enjoyed the idea of defiling and destroying her. The proof is that Ella cuts herself and has suicidal thoughts. What do these symptoms correspond to?
