With our correspondent in Antananarivo, Sarah Tétaud

On the Great Island, Covid-19 is becoming a "thing of the past" for the majority of citizens. However, the mental disorders caused by the pandemic are far from having disappeared from consultation rooms, explains Koloina Andrianilaina, clinical psychologist and president of the National Order of Psychologists of Madagascar:

"The hardest part of Covid has passed. But we are still in the post-Covid period where we encounter many patients with a lot of anxiety regarding the disease, regarding relatives who were affected by the disease, or successive losses of family members. That is truly cases we encounter a lot in sessions."

Despite its 28 million inhabitants, the country still has only 41 psychologists and about thirty psychiatrists. Too few for the needs of the population. Faliavo Ramasiarisolo, psychologist, demonstrated during her thesis the effectiveness of art therapy, via notably painting, on major depressive disorder. She encourages people in distress, who cannot consult a specialist, to practice art therapy at home:

"What I advise you to do is take time for yourself, whether alone or as a family. When you are in front of your blank sheet, let your emotions flow, draw what you are feeling, at this moment, do not seek the ideal, do not seek perfection. You can use colors that speak to you. The goal is to express our buried emotions, our repressions, our unconscious, try to share our discomfort, so that we can free ourselves from it."

Dancing, painting, writing, so many different ways to express and channel emotions that overwhelm the patient. An alternative that would require awareness and training for it to be deployed across the island. Due to lack of specialists and lack of resources, many people here also turn to "spiritual treatments" offered widely by new churches.