The National Order of Psychologists of Madagascar organized, Wednesday, April 27, its third international congress around the practice of psychology on the island. A practice these days essentially focused on managing and overcoming the trauma caused by the Covid-19 epidemic. On this occasion, the method of art therapy was particularly highlighted. Explanations.
With our correspondent in Antananarivo, Sarah Tetaud
On the Big Islandthe Covid-19 is on the way to becoming a “ thing of the past among the majority of citizens. However, the mental disorders caused by the pandemic are far from having disappeared from consultation rooms, explains Koloina Andrianilaina, clinical psychologist and president of the National Order of Psychologists of Madagascar:
” The worst of the Covid is over. But we are still in the post-Covid period where we meet a lot of patients with a lot of anxiety about the disease, about the relatives who have been affected by the disease, or the successive losses of the members of their family. These are really cases that we come across a lot in sessions. »
Despite its 28 million inhabitants, the country still has only 41 psychologists and around thirty psychiatrists. Too little for the needs of the population. Faliavo Ramasiarisolo, psychologist, demonstrated during his thesis the effectiveness of art therapynotably through painting, on the major depressive disorder. She encourages people in pain, who cannot consult a specialist, to practice art therapy at home:
” What I advise you is to take some time for yourself, whether alone or with your family. When you are in front of your white sheet, let go of your emotions, draw what you feel, at the moment T, do not seek the ideal, do not seek perfection. You can use the colors that speak to you. The goal is to express our buried emotions, our repressions, our unconscious, to try to share our discomfort, so that we can free ourselves from it. »
Dancing, painting, writing, so many different ways of expressing and channeling the emotions that go beyond the patient. An alternative that would require awareness and training for it to be deployed throughout the island. Due to a lack of specialists and a lack of means, many here also turn to spiritual treatments proposed massively by the new churches.