[Polynesia, myth and depression (author's transl)].
The author emphasizes the frequency of depressive conditions in French Polynesia, prevailing in Europeans but affecting also the natives. This frequency, looking paradoxal, incites him to analyse the "Southern Seas Myth", which a possible causal factor. Following the XVIIIth century discovery, the Myth grew and is still flourishing. Polynesia is viewed as the "lost paradise" at last recovered, its inhabitants as the "good savages" according to the Rousseau pattern, and their social and politic system as a new figure of the "Golden Age". Victims of this deception are: -- the European whose credulity emphasizes the Myth and who will face a deceiving reality. Conscious of its error, suffering of a narcissistic wound, he will fall into depression more especially as he is affected by a predisposing neurotic status; -- the native who is seen, according to wrong patterns, as a piece of the scene, indispensable to feed the Myth. The specificity of its past and present being, socio-cultural status and of its prospects is not understood. He suffers of a socio-cultural desintegration under the stress caused by the western civilisation shock. In the end he falls into anaclitism.
D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D011114:Polynesia; D011639:Public Opinion; D012917:Social Adjustment; D012924:Social Conditions
Polynésie, mythe et dépression.