towards a more humane psychiatry

“It is a permanent happening, the Adamant. People live, eat, drink, work, love or part”, says Frédéric, a patient. Here, passengers feel free to think, to act and feel cared for, thanks to attentive nursing staff. This place is the Adamant, a place of welcome and hospitality located in Paris, with the particularity of sailing on water. This place is also the inspiration of the filmmaker Nicolas Philibert, who presents his documentary film On the Adamantin theaters since yesterday.

A one-of-a-kind center

In this center, workshops, collectives and small events are organized, in order to relaunch the art of conversation and to open up to others. Where patients generally withdraw into themselves, here, this configuration makes it possible to reanimate the place, with the presence of others. “There are no closed doors, everyone can go everywhere. Anyone can go to the administrative office, to the photocopier. The daily life of this place is co-invented by patients and caregivers”explains the filmmaker.

For him, “care doesn’t just stop at giving people medicine, it’s a whole package. Treating here means trying to reconnect, helping patients reconnect with the world”. And to do so, the nursing staff is not distinguished from the patients by uniforms. “It says that we all come from the same species, from the same humanity, basically”. Because through this documentary, he proves that psychiatry can also be very inventive, failing to sometimes seem to be “abandoned and sacrificed by the public authorities”.