Faced with the disaster in Japan, "a global collective stress"
LEMONDE.FR | 16.03.11 | 12h09
After the earthquake and tsunami, Japan and the world are living in fear of a major nuclear disaster. Dr. Christian Navarre, a psychiatrist at the hospital of Rouvray in Sotteville-lès-Rouen, and author of Psy disaster ten years with victims (Editions Imago), returns to the emotion aroused by these extraordinary events.
What is your view of the reaction of the Japanese people after the disaster?
Christian Navarre: The shock of the earthquake and tsunami were relatively well absorbed. They had been prepared for a long time, and relied on reflexes of self-protection and a very strong solidarity. There are traumatic mournings, of course, but these were known things.
But there is a peculiarity in Japan on the health education of children, who perform for example many exercises, especially in earthquake simulators. They learn throughout their lives to manage this stress. This generates a very strong effect of social cohesion in the event of a disaster. There is also a peculiarity of Japanese culture that comes into play, with some acceptance of events.
There is a feeling that the nuclear threat is causing more anxiety today. How to explain it?
The threat of nuclear catastrophe is more difficult to manage. Because it evokes of course the reminiscence of painful episodes in the history of the country, but also because it represents the specter of an invisible enemy, which is not controllable, controllable by the man. For the moment, there is no collective panic, but there is an increase in stress, with a kind of vertigo. Spirituality and training are perhaps not enough any more because there is a loss of bearings, an anguish of death which has no immediate answer. That being said, today, these people still "hold on" collectively, while a catastrophe is looming. It is quite impressive.
Anxiety seems almost stronger abroad ...
In the West, there is often a denial of risk. When an accident occurs, this denial is shaken up. In addition, what is happening today refers to a kind of "destiny" linking Japan and nuclear power: it awakens the collective unconscious of the planet.
There is also the "immediacy" factor: being informed in real time which also greatly increases affect. Anxious waiting is the worst emotional thing, the most damaging. What happens today impacts us much more than, for example, what happened in Kobe back then. This real-time monitoring provokes a contagion of fear in oil stains which acts at the level of the planet.
Does this fear of the nuclear threat resonate in a particular way in France?
In France, there is a non-culture of risk, a discourse of zero risk where we are told "we have taken all precautions". The nuclear problem has been known for a long time but we are caught in a paradox because we do not want to affect our way of operating. Today, this fantasy of a world without risk is confronted with the principle of reality. There is a hyper-emotion that takes place: we share the concern around Japan, but in addition we question our own system, even though there was no accident here. It is also a way of dealing with stress.
To what extent can this emotion have a long-term impact, generate a change of direction at the collective level, especially in highly nuclearized countries?
It will depend on how events unfold. So far, relatively few people are affected by the nuclear accident. It cannot be ruled out that if the Japanese authorities succeed in regulating the situation, the "Chernobyl phenomenon" will not happen again: at the time, the scale of the disaster had changed things in terms of security and communication.
At the global level, there is a collective stress on something that, somewhere, has not happened yet. The long-term effects, which will happen in the coming months, the next years, will define what we will decide at the collective, political level. It is never in times of crisis that these changes take place. There will be progress on security, that's for sure, but from there to change everything ... It will certainly depend on the final damage.
Interview by Marion Solletty
Source: http://www.lemonde.fr/japon/article/201 ... 92975.html
