Psychiatry: the state of emergency

Ahypsychiatric disorders affect 12 million French people every year. It is enough to list the names of the pathologies concerned: depression, bipolar disorders, autism, schizophrenia, to realize that they concern us all, whether near or far. Yet, in the face of these human dramas, a deafening silence persists, which says a lot about the perception of psychiatry in our country. It is at the confluence of ignorance, confusion, prejudice, denial and shame.

We have examined the organisation of psychiatric care which, in fifty years, has gone from an ideal of equality throughout the country to a maze in which no one finds themselves any more, even the most involved players.

We wanted to tell the story of a system that breaks down on all sides and causes suffering for the patients, their relatives and the medical teams.

This book, written in collaboration with patients' associations, aims to diagnose the situation of French psychiatry (organization of care, social and territorial inequalities, economic issues, research), based on studies and the accounts of patients, their families and caregivers. The psychiatric care system is suffering, but it contains incredible human resources, initiatives and hopes that we are keen to share here. In this way, we hope to contribute to the transformation of psychiatry in France so that it can enter this century, which is full of major discoveries, with a view to better understanding and treating psychiatric illnesses.