Las almas heridas es un libro sobre las huellas de la infancia, la necesidad del relato y los mecanismos de la memoria, elementos desarrollados a partir de la narración de sus vivencias personales hasta su adolescencia. Boris Cyrulnik, un joven cuyas inquietudes intelectuales ya se encaminan por las lindes de la psiquiatría, y que realiza sus primeras prácticas en un asilo para enfermos mentales (donde quedará en shock tras comprobar el aislamiento y las malas prácticas a las que son sometidos los pacientes: lobotomías, camisas de fuerza, etc.). Su nueva obra Les ames blessées (Las almas heridas) no es ni una autobiografía ni un libro de historia de la psiquiatría: se trata de un testimonio personal sobre el nacimiento de una disciplina difícil y apasionante que denominamos psiquiatría.

Scientific studies show that some time between 500 and 40 thousand years ago, an animal very similar to humans developed a different intelligence from anything that had hereto existed. However, when, why, and how this happened is one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. If life has existed on earth for 3.6 billion years, why does unequivocal proof of the emergence of this differentiated cognition date to only 40,000 years ago? What caused this? How did this transformation take place? The present book presents a logical theory, within the principles of Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace, to clarify this great mystery: the origin of humanity. The Toba Volcano erupted 75,000 years ago in Indonesia, opening up a 30 × 100 km crater, expelling fire, gases, ash, and smoke up to a height of 30,000 meters-four times the height at which commercial jets fly-and triggering a 1,800 year-long volcanic winter throughout the planet. This catastrophic event lowered the global temperature by 15 degrees in the first 6 years, by 5-12 degrees in subsequent years, and caused the extinction of many species, especially in Asia, Oceania, and Africa. An Internet search for "the Toba catastrophe" returns a wealth of various websites and information about the phenomenon. The author proposes that in the extreme south of Africa, over the course of 15,000 years, a handful of hominids with chimpanzee-like intelligence acquired an intelligence similar to that of present-day humans. The extinction of several species destabilized the food chain, forcing these hominids to run long distances to hunt the few animals that had escaped the catastrophe. They also had to efficiently swim hunt fish, especially those from the sea-the environment least affected by the consequences of Toba. A species similar to present-day chimpanzees underwent extraordinary evolutionary pressure that resulted in the narrowing of the pelvis to facilitate racing and swimming. However, they had a bulky brain, and the narrowing of the pelvis began to prevent the birth of the babies, sometimes killing the mother, the baby, or both. At this point, the author arrives at an inferenceto solve the great mystery: he suggests that hominids born slightly prematurely had a greater advantage at birth. With their brains a little smaller, they could pass more easily through the new, narrow pelvis. Then, the unexpected happened: the side effect that gave rise to the humans that we are. Those who were born prematurely did not develop all their previously encoded instincts, that is, they were born with free memories-lots of free memories! The more the pelvis narrowed, the more babies were born prematurely and had more free memories. For the first time on the planet, a living being had developed a mechanism that continually increased its space for data, enhancing the likelihood for the appearance of algorithms such as language, comparison, imitation, counting, recognition of group members, recognition of other animals, multiplication, division, summation, proportionality, and many others that make up the cognitive system of the humans we are today. This book is the story of how the author came to this theory and these conclusions regarding various controversial subjects, such as the sense of immortality, the idea of God, female orgasm, menopause, monogamy, adultery, private sex, homosexuality, and African genetic diversity. Finally, he suggests a scientific experiment to transform a species of monkeys into animals capable of producing representative design, which in turn would place them a step away from human intelligence.

Los adultos estamos colonizando la infancia de manera acelerada por la vía de lo híper: infancias hiperactivas, hipersexualizadas, hiperconectadas... Queremos que sean como nosotros: emprendedores, con una identidad sexual clara, dominadores de varios idiomas y creativos. Idolatramos la autoestima, elogiándolos indiscriminadamente como si ya fueran geniales por el simple hecho de ser niños, a menudo origen de egos inflados de narcisismo. Y, al mismo tiempo, los queremos controlados y evaluables en sus resultados. ¿No estaremos privándoles del tiempo propio de la infancia, aquel que Freud reservaba para comprender qué significa hacerse mayor? ¿O de los entornos facilitadores de desarrollo a los que aludía Skinner? ¿Cómo seguir siendo interlocutores válidos para esta infancia del siglo XXI? Este libro está dirigido a un amplio público de madres y padres, docentes y profesionales.