The Moaga Folktale as a Privileged Pathway for Managing and Psychologically Processing Mental Disorder

Abstract

This qualitative, clinical, and psychodynamic study examines the therapeutic function of the traditional Moaga folktale (Mossi people, Burkina Faso) in the management and psychic processing of mental disorders. Based on the observation that traditional medicine remains the primary therapeutic recourse for psychological distress in sub-Saharan Africa (Coulidiaty et al., 2018; Pigeon-Gagné et al., 2017), and that popular representations of "madness" are closely linked to cosmological and narrative explanatory frameworks (Ouango et al., 1998; Pigeon-Gagné et al., 2023), the study hypothesizes that the folktale constitutes a privileged psychic mechanism—a "royal road"—for the processing, structuring, and regulation of psychological distress among Moaga subjects. The research program comprises two interconnected phases. The first, theoretical and methodological in nature, establishes a qualitative, interpretive research design combining a corpus of documented folktales with semi-structured clinical interviews, analyzed through a dual thematic (Paillé & Mucchielli, 2016) and psychodynamic lens. The second phase—serving as an initial application of this analytical framework—examines the foundational story of Princess Yennenga and her son Ouédraogo (the narrative matrix of Mossi identity) alongside illustrative, explicitly hypothetical clinical vignettes. The analysis identifies three thematic axes—transgression as a message, the liminal journey as psychic reorganization, and legitimation through lineage—discussed in light of the Imaginary-Symbolic-Real register and the axes of personality functioning proposed by the *Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual, 3rd Edition* (PDM-3; Lingiardi & McWilliams, 2025). The study discusses implications for a culturally attuned psychodynamic clinical practice, as well as the limitations of an approach for which empirical field validation remains the essential next step.