Flipping through albums of photographs from childhood, marriage, births.
Listen to old variety hits.
Savoring the same little cakes offered to us by an old aunt.
All these little rituals are able to plunge us into the nostalgia of a bygone past.
And it is positive for our psyche!
As Véronique Lefebvre des Noëttes, psychiatrist for the elderly in Limeil-Brévannes (AP-HP) notes,
"as long as it is not tinged with too much pain or suffering, and as soon as the word is welcomed by professionals, this nostalgia is a valuable aid in psychotherapeutic treatment.
Whether enhancing self-esteem in people suffering from Alzheimer's disease or
Amazing!
Nostalgia originally designates an illness.
Derived from the Greek
nostos,
which means "return", and
algos,
"suffering", the word nostalgia was invented in 1688 by a Swiss doctor, Johannes Hofer, to designate the strange illness suffered by soldiers on mission far from their country. .
“Nostalgia” for him was none other than
“the ardent desire of the afflicted soul to return to its homeland”.
In his medical thesis, he gave a clinical description of what he considered to be a pathology – chronic sadness, fever, palpitations… – while detailing its causes and treatments – from purges to bleeding to the ultimate prescription… The Come back to the country !
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The bittersweet benefits of nostalgia
It was not until the 20th century and the work of the American sociologist Fred Davis that the concept of nostalgia was dissociated from illness, by associating it with positive expressions on the contrary: is it not a question, he points out,
“of beauty, of pleasure, of joy, of satisfaction, of goodness, of happiness, of past loves, or, in short, of positive affects”?
Noting that childhood memories generally elicit a sense of security, the researcher hypothesizes that projecting oneself emotionally into one's past is important for consolidating one's own identity.
A song to celebrate Les Halles
For the Briton Constantine Sedikides, professor of social psychology at the University of Southampton, nostalgia constitutes
"a fundamentally human force"
which stimulates sharing and social ties, and gives confidence in oneself and in the future.
Dr. Lefebvre des Nöettes will not contradict this.
She evokes the memory of a memory workshop and of a patient suffering from Alzheimer's disease:
"He had worked as a butcher in the old Halles de Paris, of which I had brought a plan and images, and he was set to tell what was happening there, embellishing his remarks with songs: his pleasure in sharing and transmitting was immense, and ours too.
»
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Pampering Alzheimer's patients
Some experiences of Professor Sedikides have made it possible to explain the benefits of this state of mind.
A few years ago, his team of psychologists influenced volunteers to feel – or not – a certain nostalgia.
The group was then asked to prepare a room for a conference.
The “nostalgic” people placed the chairs closer to each other and they were more inclined to help each other.
In other experiments, researchers found that only nostalgic memories boosted optimism.
Or that people made nostalgic were more generous in their desire to donate to charities.
Encouraging the link to others, promoting self-esteem and optimism, nostalgia could also motivate the pursuit of personal and professional goals and stimulate creativity.
Far from being an escape from the present time, this more or less pregnant feeling according to personality, mood and culture would therefore present innumerable advantages.
But contrary to popular belief, old age is not the most favorable period for its occurrence: it is, in fact, towards the end of adolescence and the beginning of our adult life that we would be the more nostalgic...
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