Interview with anthropologist Sandrine Chenivesse (Part Two)

The founding of the transgenerational psychoanalysis practice

Sandrine Chenivesse is also behind L’Arbre dénoué, ‘a practice specialising in transgenerational psychoanalysis founded in 2012, whose aim is to offer personal and group therapeutic support: individual sessions, cycles of themed workshops (in ongoing groups) on transgenerational issues and life history, residential in-depth courses, and training for healthcare and counselling professionals in Life Story in Groups’.

Could you briefly explain what transgenerational psychoanalysis is?

Transgenerational psychoanalysis focuses on what has unfolded further back in family lineages, particularly on traumas that have been hushed up, set aside or buried in silence, often to preserve a family ‘narrative’ – an impeccable, unblemished image of the family.

The strategies of the collective family unconscious are numerous and powerful. Indeed, in today’s society, we see a terrifying illustration of this in the growing openness about sexual abuse, particularly incestuous rape. We often use the word ‘incest’, yet we forget that, above all, it is rape – rape within the family – which, more than any other form of rape, must be kept secret.

In transgenerational psychoanalysis, we therefore address family secrets – powerful areas of darkness that conceal immense suffering, and even double suffering: the person not only endures severe trauma, but is also forbidden to speak of it. These traumas are, as it were, encrypted in the depths of family history and form what two brilliant Hungarian psychoanalysts, Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok, have termed ‘psychic ghosts’, defined as follows: ‘The void left within us by another’s secret’. This means that such a secret, repressing a severe trauma, becomes a vivid, active memory that is passed down from generation to generation and manifests itself through ‘the symptom’ in certain descendants who become bearers of psychic ghosts. As if they were the ghosts’ ventriloquists. Indeed, the ghost’s discourse is the symptom. Its discourse circulates through time and space.

I first set up my practice in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. I had just left Paris to live in the Alpilles, the radiant landscape of my childhood. I then opened branches in Marseille and Paris. In 2021, I moved to Uzès. My therapeutic practice draws on a long journey which, in a sense, began in China, and was subsequently enriched by a fascinating exploration of psychoanalysis – including didactic analysis – as well as several years of in-depth study and exploration of psychogenealogy.

My practice centres on a holistic view of the individual. It is worth noting that right from the very start of my PhD, I was already immersed in transgenerational issues, translating the accounts of Shaman Yang Xi’s journeys into the afterlife during his trances, as he sought to untangle the transgenerational knots of death that were afflicting the families of his patrons. I believe this is where the name of my practice, L’Arbre dénoué, comes from.

The arts are never far removed from your career. How does this complement your approach to anthropology and transgenerational psychoanalysis?

Having always practised the arts (music, singing, dance, theatre, clowning and writing), I don’t hesitate to draw on whatever inspires me, intuitively, during
therapeutic sessions, particularly with groups. For example, in the workshops I run on ‘Dreams and Intuitive Writing’, I offer a ‘Theatre of Dreams’ session; this is a fascinating and powerful tool for resolution. For this, I draw on the Forum Theatre approach, which I have been practising for almost 20 years and which I have adapted to dream narration. This opens up unexpected pathways to healing. I also often incorporate intuitive writing, which is a form of automatic writing, as I have observed in Taoist rituals that have shamanic origins.

You have also turned your attention to the Tarot of Marseille… Why is that? 

I approach the Tarot of Marseille from its initiatory and therapeutic dimensions, but certainly not as a form of divination. Linked in its origins to the alchemical tradition, the Tarot is a fantastic collection of symbols.

Deciphering the archetypes that make up the puzzle of each Arcana does not predict the future, but helps us to shape it. The Tarot is like a scanner of our innermost self, our higher consciousness, our unsuspected resources and our humanity. It encourages a return to our inner sources. It does not answer our questions, but challenges us on our certainties, our beliefs and our limiting thoughts, precisely where we thought we had answers: so that we may carve out a path to our deepest intuition. Hence its therapeutic function. We hold within us the answers to everything that happens to us. However, these insights are only meaningful if they are integrated into our lived experience.

And then came the time for writing… Tell us more about the adventure that was The Fortress of Dead Souls – a journey of initiation into the Taoist mountains…

The Fortress of Dead Souls is the edited and illuminated version of my notebooks from my time as a young ethnologist, when I was carrying out my fieldwork in Fengdu, along the Yangtze River in Sichuan, between 1990 and 1994. It is my diary from that period. I wrote a great deal there; I was very much alone, very isolated, faced with taciturn locals.

Writing has always been at the heart of my life force. And out there, it had become a means of survival. And with the existential crisis that befell me during the investigation, it was even a matter of life and death. You can understand this by reading the book. It took me some thirty years to bring myself to publish these notebooks. Until then, reliving that experience through writing terrified me. I was afraid I might die from it.

I needed to feel more grounded before I could come to terms with what had happened to me. I limited myself to very minor rewriting, as some of the texts were in the form of handwritten notes, but many pages were already quite fully written out. I focused mainly on simplifying the writing; I pared the text down as much as possible. During the final proofread, for example, I removed adverbs and reduced the use of adjectives.

Since the book was published, I have entered a new phase of life. It is dedicated to my mother, to her untimely death, and I have the poignant feeling that, in this way, I have been able to find her again, to hold her close in my arms, against my heart, against my soul, so that she might move on, as if, through my emotional dissociation, I had held her back for so long.

This book has helped me bring the grieving process I began in Fengdu to a close. It has also taken me on many journeys and introduced me to some truly moving people; I receive a great many letters from readers, to which I reply, albeit a little late. There is something that forges a sense of connection through the sharing of this very intimate, strange and unsettling story.

And after two centuries of denying death in our Western societies, followed most recently by the collective, global experience we went through with Covid – which was an experience of ‘malemort’! – perhaps this book answers a quest for meaning; could that be the reason for its success?
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Many thanks to Sandrine Chenivesse for her contribution to UzEssentiel.com.

The right address: L’arbre dénoué, 14 rue des Amandiers, Montaren-et-Saint-Médiers. Contact: larbredenoue@yahoo, Tel: 06 12 99 84 77. Follow Sandrine Chenivesse on Instagram. Discover La forteresse des âmes mortes published by Actes Sud.