Why do scientists challenge booksellers?

When the psychiatrist Hugo Baup enters several bookstores. However, curious to find his “practical guide to mental health”, he has “a little trouble” to know which radius turns to turn, surprising with a “mixture of genres” between science and beliefs. Similarly, “The books that aim to popularize science with specific sources are mixed with others on personal development. However, naturopathy, or magicians and rebouteux,” says Baup.

In a large Parisian bookstore. However, his work adjoins the latest book by Lise Bourbeau: a Canadian whose personal development method “listens to your body” has been the subject of “some disturbing reports” for sectarian aberrations, according to Miviludes. For example, The writer explains in particular how to become “her own therapist” via a “metaphysical decoding” of the body. Therefore, If “everything can coexist”, Hugo Baup, who exercises in Dordogne, believes that booksellers could “guide buyers with better why do scientists challenge booksellers? signage”.

The wellness department, a trap?

In the North. Gladys Mondière, a psychologist in Lille, also deplores the highlighting by one of the largest bookstores in France with a wellness department on the first floor, when the works of psychology are confined to the sixth. “It is easier to go to the first floor than to the sixth. just as it is easier to have ready -made answers than more elaborate,” sums up Gladys Mondière, president of the French Federation of Psychologists and Psychology (FFPP).

The two professionals have signed an open letter addressed to the Union of the French Bookstore (SLF). entitled: “How booksellers can contribute to the great national mental health cause”.

“Why consult a professional when you just have to buy a coaching book?” “Asks Mickaël Worms-Ehrminger. a public health researcher and initiator of the letter, denouncing a mixture that undermines the” credibility of scientific psychology and psychiatry “and which why do scientists challenge booksellers? can lead to” dangerous practices “.

“Intellectual. social responsibility”

Published at the end of May, she modestly collected nearly 1,200 signatures, but was relayed by the SLF, which recalled that it is “essential not to coexist side by side of the titles without scientific equivalence”, while specifying that these practices concern “mainly cultural distribution”.

“We have an intellectual. social responsibility, but the profusion of works and their ambivalence also come from the edition,” explains Ingrid Ledru, manager of the bookstore Le Book En Figeac and member of the SLF board of directors, who made the choice not to offer an esoteric department. Because it is the publisher who chooses the category in which to classify his work. so that a book on anxiety can be stored in psychology without being written by a mental health professional. The booksellers are then responsible for deciding where to place them physically.

“Go sniff of plants why do scientists challenge booksellers? in the pampa”

For example. the book by journalist Nicolas Demorand, who recounts his bipolarity, is in the best sales in the Human Sciences category on the Fnac website. “It is a serious testimony. he does not end up advising” to go sniff of the plants in the pampa to get better “,” underlines Alexandra Charroin Spangenberg, president of the SLF.

But she insists on saying herself “shopping, not careful”. “It is also the responsibility of the publishers. when we talk about mental health, to slip a clear message:” If you are going badly, consult a professional “. »»