If there had been a third season of the remarkable series In therapy, Broadcast on Arte, where would this dear Doctor Dayan have ended up? Would the psychoanalyst played by Frédéric Pierrot have been a Parisian in the first Paris and an almost suburbanite in the second, if he had gone to the countryside to practice with his cliques and slaps in the face? The idea would have been attractive. Certainly he probably wouldn’t have followed a survivor of the 2015 attacks or a stressed-out city resident. But the therapist’s days would have been no less long.

Harassment, depression of isolated youth in their village or even burnout, sexual violence, family secrets, destitute farmers faced with the effects of global warming… In the countryside Young and old alike suffer from the evils of our timeThere are also those who are associated with life away from cities. To help them, psychologists adapting to the realities of these medical deserts often practice differently there than in the city. And they build other forms of relationships with their patients.

In Aveyron, as in many rural areas across France, these professionals say they reject three to five requests from new patients every day. An effect In therapy ? Perhaps. A Covid-19 effect? Surely. Almost four years after the first birth (March 2020), psychotherapists in rural areas are in demand like never before.

Residents are skeptical

To alleviate the trauma associated with the health crisis, but also to confront everything it has brought to light. Mélanie Bon talks about it “Blast”. For example, the 38-year-old therapist, who lives in a hamlet in Aveyron and practices in a large part of the department, has noticed a sharp increase in the number of 10-year-old children brought by their parents. “They were seven years old in 2020, the age at which we begin to understand many things, and today they are terribly afraid of death.” She explains.

It will now be between one and two months before I can hope to meet Claire Mérot, a psychologist in Sauveterre-de-Rouergue, population eight hundred. Four if you want an appointment at the end of the day or on Saturday. Almost a month to confide in Ivona Artus, who works in Naucelle with two thousand inhabitants. The latter estimates that the number of new inquiries has quadrupled since 2020. “People are not doing well. We still don’t care enough about your well-being. However, when it hits you, it doesn’t go away like a cold. »

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