Free psychological sessions for children, adolescents and students to help them overcome the Covid-19 health crisis are struggling to register in reality. Here’s why.
- 83% of students believe that their poor psychological state due to the health crisis has an impact on their academic results.
- 40% of parents said they observed signs of psychological distress in their child during the first confinement.
To deal with the psychological distress of young people due to the health crisis, the government has announced the establishment of ten free sessions with a psychologist for children between 3 and 17 years old, and 3 free sessions for students (renewable once ).
Child psychologists were not notified before the device
But the devices, with laudable intentions, get stuck on several levels. For children and teenagers, the package called “100% child shrink” quite simply does not exist yet, in particular because the psychologists were not warned beforehand.
“For some parents, it is acquired”, testifies on France Info Patrick-Ange Raoult, president of the national union of psychologists. Annoyed by this “announcement effect”, He pursues : “There is a certain disappointment when the psychologist replies that he has nothing to offer them. There is a very clear discrepancy between something that is said hastily, without articulation with the profession” and the reality on the ground. “As if you could snap your fingers and the psychologists would rush in…that’s not quite how it’s supposed to work,” he laments.
Too complex for students
As far as students are concerned, the system is too complex, especially for psychologically weakened people: you must first get a prescription from your general practitioner, then register on the online platform “Student Psy Health”, and finally being able to consult a psychologist. The time to access the specialized consultation is therefore too long to deal with suicidal emergencies, and the access system too proactive for people who are often slowed down by depression.
In addition, 6 free sessions are not enough to treat serious psychological problems, knowing that student grants generally do not make it possible to honor additional health costs. “It is difficult to begin to tell his story. If you stop after a few sessions, you interrupt the meeting. There are perverse effects in introducing a break in the care pathway”, explains in Le Monde the psychiatrist Jean-Christophe Maccotta, head of the center of prevention and psychological orientation of the PSL university, in Paris. “What will happen when I let them go?”, worries another psychologist.
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