Her head in the shampoo tray, she enjoys her massage with her eyes closed. Louise (names have been changed) does not often wash her curly hair. “It’s complicated with the shower, they say it’s bipolar, she laughs. You never know if it will be hot or cold! » The expert hands of the hairdresser pamper her scalp. Usually, Louise can’t stand being touched: “I never cuddle, I don’t like body massages, but that’s fine. » In this cocoon resembling a real hair salon, with its designer armchairs and its shampoo advertisement, Louise, 16, lets herself go: “It feels good, I just have to relax. »
This is the first time she has set foot – big unicorn-shaped slippers – in Marie’s studio (who prefers not to give her name), the “socio-hairdresser” who pampers the teenagers of the Maison de Solenn. “I smooth, massage, curl, I cut, but I don’t color, she says in a soft voice, what do you want to do ? » Smooth! ” It’s pretty, said Louisa, it’s a little princess. »
Marie distills her advice (“a drop of olive oil on your lengths”) and arouses confidence. “When I came to pick you up, were you girls chatting? », she asks. “A teenager shares her room with another who acts like her mother: “Behave well, sit well”, entrust the girl. She needed comfort. » Louise has been hospitalized for a month for a severe stomach ache preventing her from walking. Tomorrow is the big day. As his parents said: “Arrived in a wheelchair, our daughter left standing. »
Eating disorders, school anxiety, social phobia…
Repairing teenagers, bringing them back to life following a fortnight or twelve months in a bubble sheltered from the din of the world is the challenge of the Maison de Solenn. Behind the green windows of the imposing building on Boulevard de Port-Royal in Paris, a battalion of doctors, nurses, dieticians and other specialists are struggling, overwhelmed by the SOS of disoriented parents: nearly a hundred new requests each week .
“Teens are paying a heavy price for the pandemic. The confinement forced them to live under the gaze of their parents, when they were supposed to separate from them, go outside. Marie Rose Moro, child psychiatrist at the head of the Maison de Solenn
It is in this therapeutic sanctuary of 11-18 year olds that we send the inconsolable who has tried three times to commit suicide with aspirin, paracetamol and then anticoagulants, the addict to video games confined in his room who qualifies of“scammer” his doctor, the twig that the Kremlin-Bicêtre team can no longer plump up. Attached to the Cochin hospital, the establishment is part of the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP).
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