Does anyone have any experience of French psychiatric hospitals or psychiatric treatment / counselling /psychology?

[Nighbynight]

?
what are they like compared to other countries?

(Auldalliance, if you read this, I would still like to call you, but fell straight from the last disaster into the current one!! Had to take my son to hosp the day after the court case, and have spent most of the last month there or at work or travelling)

I was in a hospital once with a lady from france who had been in a french pstchiatric unit and apparatly they use a lot of ECT. In fact she kept begging for it.

That was about seven years ago things may be different now.

what is ECT? I know nowt about psych treatment.

electroconvulsive therapy

bl*y hell I say no more

what I mean is, how heavy are they with psychiatric treatment? do people routinely go to psychs? do doctors often refer people to psych hospitals?
is it more like the americans, or more like the brits? (poss 2 opposite poles of the spectrum)

I do want to qualify my post by saying she told me this six years ago and I am not sure how long ago she was referring to.

I was in a hospital in this coutry about six years ago that used a fair bit of ECT.

Nighbynight, I've just seen this. I have no firsthand experience of psychiatric treatment in France and no useful contacts this time!
I don't want to seem as if I'm prying, but could you be a bit more specific about the kind of things you want to know? I can tell you that France has a very high prescription and consumption rate for anti-depressants and anxiolytic type drugs, one of the highest in Europe.
If you can be bothered, there's a report here from the Ministry of Health. The introduction gives you some basic info about hospitalisation rates, regional provision, etc.

Sorry also to hear you've been so swamped in successive disasters.

(Don't worry about phoning. If you have my e-mail address (ggg has it), drop me a quick line sometime and we can chat like that or find a good time for a quick phone call.)

Oops, cross-posted!
People do, I think, quite routinely go for counselling and therapy, more so than in the UK.
At least, I don't know anyone in the UK who has (or has admitted it to me), whereas I do know several people in France who have been to see psychiatrists/ psychologists or therapists, and they have openly discussed it with me or mentioned it in passing.
I don't know of anyone amongst them who was referred to a psychiatric hospital. I knew one schizophrenic who was under heavy medication and had a seriously depressive friend who was on AD's and anxiolytics but neither ever went to a hospital to my knowledge. I suspect they tend to be more American than British, to borrow your terms. But have never heard of anyone undergoing ECT...

thank you
psych treatment is v heavy where we are.

Will try and find out a bit more...

Sorry for lack of response - made a snap decision today to take ds to Austria as nearer than France. German hospital was getting very heavy, with a hosp social worker forcing us to psychiatric treatment for ds (yes, you did read that right). Our lawyer advised us to move him to another hosp to help defuse the situation. It is a nightmare. Have just now (1,30 am) got back home.

NN, I'm sorry this is all so dreastic. I haven't been able to access my yahoo account for days, have been wanting to mail you.

How did it go in Austria?