“These new patients would never have come without ‘MonPsy'”: a month after its launch this device, offering eight sessions of psychological support reimbursed by Social Security, allows precarious people to meet, often for the first time, a psychologist. Launched by the government in early April, “MonPsy” allows patients over three years of age with “mild to moderate” disorders to benefit from an interview-assessment and seven reimbursed psychological support sessions.
A “helping hand” from the security
Fabienne Asiani has her office in Pierrefitte-sur-Seine and has registered for this system. “Seine-Saint-Denis is a socially very impacted department, I see political refugees, with 265 euros per month, people who benefit from Restos du Cœur”, so many people who could never have financed a consultation with a psychologist without this boost from Social Security, she explains.
MonPsy also allows her to adopt a different approach with her patients: a “psychology of commitment, which combines psychology and orientation towards legal structures” for women victims of violence, or social structures for over-indebted or homeless patients, she says.
Patients who would never have come without “MonPsy”
Also based in Seine-Saint-Denis, in Villemomble, Laurent Wajs feared a “windfall effect” linked to free admission, when he volunteered. Finally, he meets patients “who would never have come without ‘MonPsy'”. “These are mostly people who work, but whose obstacle (to making an appointment) was financial,” he told AFP. “Many of them had therefore never consulted”.
To be reimbursed by Social Security, patients must have a referral letter from a doctor, a provision criticized by some psychologists. But not by Laurent Wajs. He almost only works with doctors and their two professions are complementary, he points out. “We start from a system where there was nothing, with a minimum waiting period of six months in the CMPs, medico-psychological centers, (which provide care free of charge). The deadlines for obtaining an appointment with a psychologist through the “MonPsy” device are getting longer, he notes, “but we are far from six months”.
1,300 volunteer psychologists
Since the launch of the system, 1,300 psychologists have volunteered for metropolitan France. A psychologist, who practices in rural areas in Auvergne and who wishes to remain anonymous, regrets that there are not enough volunteers. “People have no money”, including in these very rural departments. And “the psychologists are not present” as they are in Paris or in the big cities. Among his new patients, a 13-year-old girl and a 79-year-old lady. “The profiles and pathologies are very heterogeneous,” she notes.
One of her colleagues, north of Paris, registered in the “MonPsy” system, says she cannot respond to all the requests for care (she receives two to three a day). “In all the ‘care’ professions, there is a real shortage of staff,” she sighs. She sees in this device the opportunity for young psychologists to start with a practice.
From the announcement in September 2021 by Emmanuel Macron, part of the profession had called for a boycott of what they call “window dressing”. They point to prices deemed too low (40 euros the first session, 30 euros the following) and the exclusion of the most serious cases. Psychologists especially point out that psychological follow-up in the public sector (hospitals and CMP), also free, has suffered from chronic underfunding for years.
Source: Europe1
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