Elise Mask, mental health professional and researcher, unveils Ninou’s secret, breaking 30 years of denial and loyalty to reclaim her voice, in L’Aîné (Balland, 2026).  

Introduction: “The Eldest” (L’Aîné) is the story of an unspoken incest—the kind that remains hidden: sibling incest, abuse disguised as children’s games. It is the story of a tight-knit bourgeois family, seemingly above all suspicion.

It is the story of a memory suddenly emerging from its lethargy, awakened by another’s anger. It is the story of Ninou, breaking free from silence after thirty years of denial and unwavering loyalty. It is the story of a voice now unrestrained, stripped of false modesty, addressing the protagonists of yesterday and today.

The Eldest is a narrative. And it is mine.

This narrative was born from silence—a silence spanning several decades, woven from repression, denial, and survival. This is neither a theoretical text nor a clinical essay, but an intimate testimony, carried by a woman who is both a victim and a mental health professional. A psychologist, a researcher, and the author of numerous scientific publications, she steps forward here without her titles, without her markers. What she offers is her story—a descent into a fractured childhood, into the winding paths of a memory long locked away. The originality of this book lies precisely in this dual legitimacy: that of lived experience and that of professional insight. It speaks both to those who support victims in giving voice to their stories, and to those who are still searching for their own.

Christine Angot comes from a family background marked by linguistics and translation, and she herself has a demanding academic training. You are also a specialist in psychology. In your view, does this dual competence — mastery of language and clinical expertise — constitute a singular configuration for approaching the question of incest, or are there comparable precedents in intellectual or clinical history?

EM: I think it is important to start from the idea that each person is both singular and shaped by a plurality of experiences, roles, and identities. A traumatic experience, such as the one reported in L’aîné or that of Christine Angot to which you refer, never arises out of context: it is part of a developmental trajectory, shaped by family dynamics, but also by individual characteristics, such as a particular sensitivity. And it necessarily influences what comes afterward, including professional choices.

In my case, the choice of a caregiving profession, and more specifically of the psychic field, is inseparable from this history. There was an attempt at repair, almost a quest to “redeem” something. But that does not mean that this choice would be biased or illegitimate. The idea that professionals in psychiatry or psychology are primarily seeking to heal themselves is reductive.

On the contrary, when this experience is worked through, it can become a resource: it supports the capacity to put things into words, but also a form of authentic empathy. This configuration is not exceptional; it runs through many trajectories in caregiving professions. It offers a perspective that is both personal and shareable, which makes it possible to resonate intimate experience with more universal realities.

The works of Rosa Jaïtin refer to “sibling incest,” while Hélène Romano and Patrick Ayoun prefer the term “adelphic.” Do these terminological distinctions, in your view, cover significant conceptual or clinical differences, or are they mainly a matter of vocabulary choice?

EM: The terms “sibling incest” and “adelphic incest” refer, in my view, to the same clinical reality. The word “adelphic,” from the Greek adelphos meaning “brother” or “sister,” certainly has a scholarly resonance and belongs to an intellectual tradition that runs through myths, religious texts, and literature. Historically, these relationships have been both condemned as major transgressions of social and moral order, particularly in the Middle Ages, and sometimes idealized in certain works as a form of absolute love, which shows the ambivalence of the perspective on them.

However, in the clinical field and in public debate, it seems preferable to favor clear and immediately understandable terms. “Sibling incest” has the advantage of explicitly naming the reality without detour. The use of more scholarly vocabulary can introduce distance, or even a form of opacity, which is not desirable when dealing with a phenomenon that is still largely invisible.

Psychoanalysts can, of course, propose fine distinctions, but in a perspective of awareness and recognition, the simplicity of language seems essential.

André Green developed the notion of “dead parenthood” to think about certain configurations of sibling incest as taking place within a parental void. How do you assess the relevance of this explanatory model in understanding these situations?

EM: The concept of “dead parenthood,” extending the “dead mother” proposed by André Green, is particularly illuminating for thinking about certain family configurations. It invites us to go beyond a purely material view of parental presence and to question the quality of the bond. In the situation mentioned, the parents are not absent in a concrete sense: they fulfill instrumental functions, provide a stable living environment, and meet the children’s material needs. But on the psychic and emotional level, their presence appears weakened.

One observes a very controlled family organization, paradoxically leaving the children alone, without a real emotional container. The episode of maternal depression further intensifies this void, leading the child to overadapt, or even to try to “revive” the parent. This deficit of emotional investment creates a space where reference points and limits become less operative, making the family system more permeable to overflow.

However, this model is not sufficient on its own. It sheds light on part of the functioning, but other dimensions must be taken into account, notably marital dynamics and attachment bonds within the family. It is the combination of all these relational fragilities that helps make this type of situation possible.

In situations of sibling incest, the victim’s parent is also the perpetrator’s parent. How can this configuration, which tends to blur identificatory and moral reference points, be approached on a clinical and ethical level? What paths allow one to get out of it?

EM: Sibling incest presents a very specific configuration: the presence of a parent common to both the victim and the perpetrator. This situation creates a major clinical and ethical tension, because this parent is caught in contradictory loyalties, often impossible to resolve without significant psychic cost. This raises an essential question: how to protect without excluding, and how to support without condoning.

In the narrative L’aîné, the mother occupies a central place in the family system. She is not merely a spectator: she participates, more or less implicitly, in the establishment of an order where the omnipotence of the eldest is tolerated, or even supported. This positioning is part of an older dynamic, marked by logics of sacrifice and preservation of the clan. Thus, becoming this “shared parent” is never random: it is the outcome of an already structured family functioning.

At the moment of revelation, this configuration shows its fragility. Unable to receive the child’s words and to position herself in a protective way, the parent may resort to massive denial, which sometimes constitutes the only available psychic outcome. This adds trauma to the initial trauma.

In support work, the challenge is to understand this positioning in order to support everyone: the victim, of course, but also the perpetrator, and this parent caught in an insoluble conflict, helping them as much as possible to regain a capacity for protection.

Sophie Camacho evokes an “unthought” of psychoanalysis concerning certain forms of intrafamilial violence, before the work of Paul-Claude Racamier. This can be linked to other areas long little explored, such as child mourning after the suicide of a parent or a loved one.Do you share the idea that blind spots still exist today in psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice? If so, which seem most salient to you?

EM: Yes, I think blind spots still exist today, not only in psychoanalysis but more broadly in all disciplines concerned with the psyche. These blind spots evolve over time: what was unthinkable yesterday gradually becomes thinkable, as certain social realities emerge and speech is freed.

In the field of psychoanalysis, certain forms of intrafamilial violence have long been difficult to conceptualize, especially when they did not correspond to classical models centered on parent-child relationships. Sibling incest is one example, as are other experiences that have long remained little visible or little named.

Even today, the most sensitive areas concern what escapes established theoretical frameworks: “ordinary” forms of violence, ambiguous situations, or experiences that do not easily find symbolic representation. There is sometimes a tension between the richness of theoretical models and the complexity of reality, which always exceeds these frameworks.

This calls for a posture of clinical humility: accepting that certain experiences remain partially enigmatic, and that our tools must continue to evolve, in dialogue with other approaches, such as attachment theory, trauma sciences, or developmental perspectives.

René Kaës proposed the idea that the fantasy of parthenogenesis could constitute a defense against the horror of incest, by avoiding the representation of a sexual origin involving an incestuous desire.Does this hypothesis seem to you to mark a step in the clinical understanding of these mechanisms, or is it part of a theoretical continuity?

EM: The hypothesis proposed by René Kaës is part of a psychoanalytic tradition that seeks to think about defense mechanisms in the face of extreme psychic experiences. The idea that certain fantasies — such as that of parthenogenesis — could make it possible to avoid the representation of an incestuous origin is interesting, because it highlights the way the psyche can protect itself from unbearable contents.

That said, I am not certain that this proposal constitutes a major theoretical rupture. It seems rather to extend a long-standing reflection in psychoanalysis on the functions of fantasy as organizer and protector of psychic life.

What seems essential today is not to remain only within a reading in terms of internal representations. In situations of incest, and particularly sibling incest, there is also a reality of facts, interactions, and family contexts that must be taken into account.

In other words, these theoretical contributions are valuable, but they benefit from being articulated with other approaches — particularly those from the field of trauma — in order not to lose sight of the concrete and relational dimension of these situations.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)