“I think I will be useful to a lot of patients”

Salhia Brakhlia goes to meet a woman who exercises an essential profession in society. Clara Brichant is a psychiatrist at Bichat Hospital. She confides in the microphone of franceinfo.

Clara Brichant is a psychiatrist at the Maison des femmes, at the Bichat hospital, in Paris. It is here that we welcome women who are victims of sexual, conjugal, psychological and also economic violence. “Helping a part of the population who has few resources, I found that important.” Several dozen women a day are accompanied. “Unfortunately, violence affects all socio-professional categories, contrary to what one might think spontaneously, explains the psychiatrist. So, at this level, there is no typical profile.”

For the psychiatrist, one should not mix professional life and personal life. But she admits it, “We have patients who affect us more than others and whom we find particularly sympathetic. And because, for various reasons, it resonates with us, we have links. But that’s what I find really nice , is that there are follow-ups that last a long time and that there is a real relationship of trust that is established.”

“We often hear that going to see a shrink is to be crazy”

Clara has already been threatened with patents, at the psychiatric hospital. “In a closed unit, we receive patients who are often hospitalized under duress for behavioral problems, who are very delusional, who can be very aggressivesays the psychiatrist. You can be threatened, you can be insulted.” She remembers complicated situations: “I’m thinking of a patient in the emergency room, for example, on night call at 3 a.m., we’re alone in the office and he tells us about hallucinations, that he hears voices telling him to hurt others .”

“We often hear that going to see a shrink is going crazysays the psychiatrist. I don’t think people should feel pressured to go anyway.”

“I remind you that there are 20 percent of people who go through depression during their lifetime. So one person in five is still not negligible.”

Clara Brichant, psychiatrist

At franceinfo

For Clara Brichant, people don’t really know what the job is about. “On a daily basis, I like to help people, I like to listen to them, I like to take an interest in their lives.she says. I have the recognition of my patients. Not always, but often, and that’s important. Recognition from society? I couldn’t say.” Is she aware that what she does in everyday life is essential? “Yes, there are days when I have to remember that. But overall, yes, I think it is useful to a lot of patients.”


“Essentials”, a franceinfo podcast by Salhia Brakhlia, to be found on the franceinfo website, the Radio France application and several other platforms such as Apple podcasts, Podcast Addict, Spotify, or Deezer.


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