Health anthropologist Aurélien Troisoeufs assumes the direction of the research laboratory in mental health, human and social sciences of the university hospital group of psychiatry and neurosciences (GHU) in Paris. This team of nine people works there, in particular, in the area of peer support, the use of people with experience and training in mental illness and neighborhood issues for people suffering from mental disorders.
You have always worked as an anthropologist in the field of mental health. How did you get into psychiatry?
I was 17 years old, barely out of adolescence. I always felt very free in my education and I wanted to experience confinement. He had two options: prison or psychiatric hospital. And I came to psychiatry as a hospital services agent (ASH). I discovered an environment where I always felt very comfortable. I did two hours of cleaning and then, voila, I was directly with the patients. They made me review my lessons. I met so much diversity of people, so much wealth! All emotions multiply. You have creativity, of course you have people who suffer, but some are full of joy, sometimes maybe too much. I experienced incredible things there. These early experiences still carry me today. This is my Proust madeleine.
Then he continued cleaning the hospital, for his anthropological observations…
Yes. This is what in sociology we call “dirty work.” But it is the gateway to the invisibility of everything you do as an anthropologist. It is often said that the ASH is just after the patient in the hierarchical organization. When I clean, I don’t scare anyone. Not to the caregivers, because I’m not supposed to judge their work, and not to the patients. I didn’t discover psychiatry in books. It was also an ASH who taught me what it was. He had no theoretical knowledge, but he did have twenty-five years of psychiatry behind him. She introduced me to people in her own way. Without necessarily its diagnosis. It affected my approach to anthropology, which focused on relationships, on what people say and do to each other. Every time I go in for the patient, but it is also to question the relationships with health professionals.
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