Victimologist Isabelle Chartier-Siben publishes a book dedicated to victims of abuse in the Church

Active, is she? She corrects: “Active and contemplative. » Isabelle Chartier-Siben, doctor, psychotherapist and victimologist, has been treating people suffering from psychological trauma for around thirty years. In 2002, she co-founded the association C'est à dire*, a name chosen to hammer home a conviction: it is essential to say, to denounce the attacks of which we are victims, in order to live. Gradually, the association saw the arrival of many victims of abuse in the Church. “Write!” Pass it on! » This mother of two children, who had to give up the dream of having ten, resisted for a long time before giving in to a persuasive publisher, hoping that her book, written in transport on a smartphone equipped with a “slightly different screen”. big”, would make it clear how “disrespect for others, control, abuse of authority, spiritual abuse, sexual assault, lead to major destruction”. Accessing a new life after such a trauma is often the story of a lifetime.

On the private side, Isabelle Chartier-Siben admits to having been, from childhood, imbued with a personal faith, “like Obélix in a magic potion”. Like her deacon husband, she trained in theology and the couple's ecclesial roots were forged through various spiritual currents, charismatic in the 1980s, then Carmelite and Ignatian. Abuses are committed in all ecclesial environments, she knows from experience, “horrified by the tensions” between supporters of this or that spirituality. If his anchors him in a discreet hope, as his book testifies, it is at the cost of a relentless fight: “I cling to Christ on the cross, to his open side. »

*Association helping victims of physical, psychological and spiritual abuse