PSYCHOLOGY – Brandie all the time, everywhere, she forces us to muzzle our negative emotions… and leads us to push the other to ignore hers.
In politics, at the office, at school, in the family… The injunction to benevolence has become omnipresent in all areas of life. “It’s almost like the health pass during a pandemic, it must be produced systematically. Result: it is proclaimed, but more and more feigned”laments psychiatrist Stéphanie Hahusseau in her latest book, Let your emotions live without guilt or anxiety (Odile Jacob, 2022).
Of course, the intention is laudable. Wanting the good of the other, showing understanding and indulgence towards them helps to develop the cooperation necessary for life in society. But what sometimes turns out to be problematic, even counter-productive, is the way in which we try to impose it everywhere. “We are enjoined to experience positive and generous emotions, but an emotion cannot be ordered. To order someone to feel it is to condemn him not to experience it, to generate stress in him and to risk locking him into an attitude…
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