In the meeting room of the day hospital in the Lille Hospital Center (Hauts-de-France), Arnaud Leroy, a psychiatrist, discusses with Adeline Serez, one of the nurses in the unit.
– “She received a lot of education on the behavior of the aggressor, who alternated between being gentle and friendly, then violent and aggressive.” – “Yes, but she remains very ambivalent. Her body has changed, she can no longer participate in sports due to physical consequences. After the trauma, figuring out who I am has become complicated for her.”
At the beginning of the morning, the two caregivers discuss the daily care plan for the three patients who will arrive shortly. “We have a unique way of working: we create an exposure plan before the 15-day program starts, deciding which traumatic scene we will work on and then we adapt it, discussing it several times a day to make sure we are going in the right direction.”
The therapist-led care concerns various psychiatric trauma patients, who suffer from post-traumatic stress. The program combines various psychotherapies intensively for patients facing issues like serious accidents, sexual trauma, military trauma, domestic abuse among others. The patients voluntarily confront their trauma under the guidance of a multidisciplinary team, including nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, a psychomotor therapist, and educators in adapted physical activity.
Therapies like EMDR, exposure therapy, brief therapies, exposure therapies focused on narratives, and psychocorporeal therapies are effectively combined in an individualized and adapted manner according to the patient’s evolution over the 15-day hospitalization period.
The patients are tasked with recalling traumatic memories during exposure sessions, where they revisit the traumatic events to desensitize themselves emotionally and reintegrate the memories into their minds.
The treatment focuses on building a therapeutic alliance with patients from the beginning to foster trust. The structured program includes psychoeducation sessions to help patients understand and validate their symptoms and prepare them for therapeutic interventions. Psychoeducation tools help the patients feel at ease and engage in their recovery process effectively.
Daily physical activities are integrated into the hospitalization process to reduce stress intensity and encourage self-care and physical well-being. This proves to be challenging for some patients but leads to significant transformations and progress during the hospitalization period. The focus post-hospitalization is to maintain the progress made and provide patients with the tools to continue their recovery journey effectively.
