French psychiatry: The Great Depression

ABSTRACT

Treatment without consent, isolation rooms, use of mechanical and chemical restraints... illegal practices and conditions in psychiatric hospitals have recently been revealed in several newspapers, official reports, and in French academic literature. Condemned everywhere, the functioning of France's psychiatric system has mobilized the attention of the government, which has been talking a great deal about the importance of mental health and care since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic. How then did the government choose to react to this catastrophic situation? By introducing restrictions and laws that choke a dying organization, one that is suffocating under the weight of demand and the threat of an inhuman financial reform. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved) (French) Soins sans consentement, isolement, contention, camisoles mecanique, chimique... La litanie des pratiques et des conditions illegales d'enfermement infligees aux patients dans les services hospitaliers de psychiatrie est egrenee, denoncee depuis des mois dans la litterature, la presse, les rapports parlementaires et administratifs. Denonce de toutes parts, le fonctionnement de la psychiatrie est apparemment l'objet de toute l'attention d'un pouvoir politique qui n'a eu de cesse de rappeler l'importance de la sante mentale et du soin, pendant l'epidemie de Covid-19. Mais comment se traduit cette attention ? Par des restrictions, des condamnations, des lois qui viennent alourdir un systeme qui suffoque sous le poids de demandes qu'il ne peut traiter et la perspective d'une reforme qui, si elle etait mise en oeuvre, enterinerait la fin de l'humanite des soins. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)