Individual presentation:
• Marc-André Cotton:
Traumatic Dissociation and the Rise of Toxic Masculinity in the Modern World — A social and Neurobiological Perspective
(60 min)

Abstract:

In the United States today, lethal and sexual violence is overwhelmingly a male phenomenon. Men make up more than 80% of those arrested for violent crimes and nearly 90% of those arrested for homicide. Almost all perpetrators of rape and sexual assault are men, while women bear the brunt of victimization: about one in five American women has survived a completed or attempted rape in her lifetime.

At the same time, public mass shootings the most spectacular and terrifying form of violence — are committed almost exclusively by men: around 98% of mass shooters are male. This is not an anecdotal deviation but a structural pattern. From a trauma and dissociation perspective, it raises a crucial question: how does a culture that systematically exposes boys to violence, shaming, and emotional suppression turn unresolved traumatic states into what we call “toxic masculinity”?

The work of French psychiatrist and trauma specialist Muriel Salmona offers a powerful framework to understand this. She describes how extreme violence — especially sexual violence and violence in childhood — leaves behind a “traumatic memory”: a dissociated, neurobiological state of permanent threat. When this traumatic memory is never recognized or treated, it can fuel both self-destructive behaviors and violent acting-out toward others.

In this talk, I will explore how this model can help us make sense of the global rise of toxic masculinity, with a particular focus on male violence in the contemporary United States. I will suggest that violence often operates as a dissociative survival response to early trauma. When these dissociated states are not addressed early in life, they can set off a domino effect through which the original violence spreads outward.

Keywords: childhood trauma, dissociation, male violence, neurobiology, psychohistory, sexual violence, toxic masculinity, traumatic memory

Short Bio:

Marc-André Cotton, MA, is an independent scholar and advocate of children. With his late wife and therapist Sylvie Vermeulen, he is the founder of the French website Regard conscient (regardconscient.net), a research project whose purpose is to bring to light the links between repressed sufferings and their acting out on the different stages of life. He has published numerous articles on PH related topics, eventually serving as IPhA’s President since 2024. He regularly wrote for French magazine PEPS, a quarterly dedicated to benevolent parenting, and lectures in parental education. He’s the author of “In the Name of the Father, the Bush Years and the Legacy of Violence in Childrearing,” published in French in 2014. He can be reached at .