Elise Mask Interview | Alexandre Gilbert #330.2 |
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.
The preface mentions abuses “disguised as children’s games,” which raises questions about mechanisms of trivialization and non-recognition.How does clinical practice make it possible to distinguish what belongs to normative childhood exploration from what constitutes real incestuous violence? What are the risks of blindness, including for those around?
EM: Trivialization is a major issue, and undoubtedly even more acute in the case of sibling incest. It often rests on a confusion between childhood exploration and violence. There is indeed a strong temptation to reduce these situations to “children’s games” or to supposedly normal bodily curiosity. This interpretation is in reality a psychic refuge: it makes it possible not to see the violence at work.
Clinical practice........