Get informed, exchange ideas, shake up certainties on questions that are disturbing… This is the ambition of the European Bioethics Forum in Strasbourg. On the program for this fifteenth edition, from January 29 to February 1, 2025: mental health.
At the start of 2005, there is a confusing zeitgeist. We never stop talking about our society which is doing badly, about the mental load which would be too heavy, making us all sick; and as proof of this mental disorder we are witnessing a psychiatry which is collapsing, taking care of serious mental pathologies more and more poorly.
“People ask me how our teenagers are doing?” Professor Bruno Falissard, child psychiatrist, told us recently. “They are doing badly, it’s true, and at the same time, it’s more complex than this simple statement”. He’s right. The data is indeed confusing; contrary to what one might think, for example, suicide in France has declined considerably over the last thirty years, and this in all age groups. There is only one exception: young women from 2017 among whom the suicide rate increases slightly. But overall, there were 800 deaths by suicide among adolescents and young adults in the 1980s, there are 250 now. “On the other hand, we cannot deny that the overall volume of psychological suffering expressed is much higher”continues Bruno Falissard.
What can we deduce from this contradictory data? We often mix everything up, mental health and psychiatry, mental aches and pains and major psychological gaps. Maybe first point out the obvious. “First, say to yourself that it is logical, in our difficult times, between covid, ecological concerns and conflicts, that people are doing badly. They have been like this with covid, attacked by something invisible and which can affect us all. This is part of the great collective stresses”analyzes Bruno Falissard. And he continues: “In this context, if you have vulnerability factors (biological, social), there is a risk of transforming this discomfort into psychiatric decompensation. So. All this is known and logical. And yes, it can be serious.”
At the same time, how can we not note that young people but also the whole of society resisted? “We see it, we have seen it, all these situations have provoked reactions of resilience. There are people who will build themselves up in these moments. I have examples with children or adolescents. I saw young people, by videoconference, telling me that they had discovered that they could learn on their own, others telling me that their father was at home and that they could play with him, that they were experimenting a family life. I have seen agitated teenagers calming down at home. Others taking care of their parents. This also exists. And to conclude thus: “Instead of claiming that everything is hard, of adding anxiety to anxiety, we, professionals specializing in the care of psychological suffering, should be supportive, reaffirm that we will get through it, say that what we do is good. This is an opportunity to rethink our society in depth, and it really needs it. However, we only heard the opposite in the media: we insisted on negative things which, what’s more, were often false.
Well, everything is not always so dark. But what do the people concerned say? Few things. Some withdraw, become silent. Mental illness is often this: being alone, too alone in your head. Mental suffering isolates and stigmatizes. The person finds himself cut off more and more, tiring of loved ones, tiring of friends, isolated by a discomfort which becomes a disease of the bond.
What to do then? Oddly, in psychiatric services, isolation rooms have developed since the 1990s. Before, isolating a patient was exceptional, now the practice has become common. Isolation rooms are everywhere. Heal evil with evil. Isolate and sometimes even attached… To heal? What a funny idea… Let’s listen to this testimony from a member of the Solidarités usagers psy association. “My experience of the psychiatric hospital is boredom. We are alone. When you see the psychiatrist twice a week, it’s already good. When you have one activity per day, it’s downright luxury. Most of the activity at the hospital? It’s watching TV and stupid clips playing on repeat. The only exception to the rule of boredom is when, through suffering too much, we fall (literally) in isolation. What psychologists call the “intensive care” room.”
Obviously, there are other practices, other supports. But sometimes we wonder who is sicker. The one who is or the system that treats him?
Source: www.liberation.fr
