
PORTRAIT Expert
Denis Legay
A psychiatrist, who was chair of the Regional Conference on Health and Autonomy in the Pays de la Loire Region from 2010 to 2021. Denis Legay was honorary president of the Regional Health Observatory of the Pays de la Loire Region. He is also secretary general of the French committee for psychosocial rehabilitation (« Reh@b’ »).

What we call ‘access to care’ depends on multiple factors. If I had to choose one, it would be the negative image associated with psychiatric conditions which makes mental health seem mysterious, strange and stigmatized. Because mental health problems also makes us think about our own suffering, which we want to forget.
This is without question the deciding factor, due to the stigmatization which it causes and how this is reflected in the everyday life in the health care system, social welfare, the media, political circles, and society as a whole.
Despite the undeniable recent progress, mental health remains a hard concept for the general public to understand. There is a great need for information, a need for a bottom-up approach and a need to monitor and counteract negative images and remove barriers to access to care, enabling early intervention.
It is this aspect of advocacy which, in my opinion, needs considerable work.