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VIDEO. These psychiatric patients surf to overcome their anxieties
“In the water you feel free, your anxieties disappear.” Once a week, these psychiatric patients surf on the beach at Carcans. Brut followed Marc, Anaïs and Patrick, patients at the Charles Perrens psychiatric hospital in Bordeaux.
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“In the water you feel free, your anxieties disappear.” Once a week, these psychiatric patients surf on the beach at Carcans. Brut followed Marc, Anaïs and Patrick, patients at the Charles Perrens psychiatric hospital in Bordeaux.
“Ocean and slide” is an activity co-created with health professionals from the Charles Perrens psychiatric hospital in Bordeaux in partnership with a local surf school. Once a week, the team takes patients with bipolarity, schizophrenia, severe personality disorders. “The goal is really to try to find an alternative solution that completely complements the overmedication of psychiatric patients today” explains Julie, occupational therapist.
According to the supervisors, there are numerous benefits for patients: “We observed much fewer anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, a decrease in addictions as well, and a desire in particular to stop smoking” explains Alice, a psychologist. Jeremy, a surf instructor, sees the progress over the months: “Seeing them every week and seeing their evolution linked to practice, even just to the environment we are in, to the ocean, to the beach, it brings a lot of things.”
Caregivers also take part in surfing lessons alongside patients, a way of encouraging them “destigmatize”These courses are funded by the Charles Perrens psychiatric hospital, to which the patients are attached.
