What do you think?
Rate this book
Graphic Medicine
The Third Population
Founded in 1956, the French psychiatric clinic La Chesnaie is an open and welcoming facility that houses about one hundred people of all ages. It provides traditional forms of care for people with serious mental illness, but it does so in a uniquely supportive environment where patients and caregivers participate equally in the day-to-day operations of the clinic. The driving force of La Chesnaie is the "Club," a nonprofit organization serving as a liaison between the clinic and the outside world. It arranges cultural and recreational outings for the patients as well as activities like concerts and exhibitions that bring the public to La Chesnaie. As a result, days at the clinic are quite lively and never routine.
Author Aur�lien Ducoudray and illustrator Jeff Pourqui� immersed themselves for a time in the culture of La Chesnaie. Like everyone there, including the patients, supervisors, and caregivers, they took part in the daily chores of the clinic, cooking and cleaning. They participated in group events and even led a comics workshop to teach the residents about their craft. The Third Population is the engaging, inspiring, and often poignantly funny result of this project.
The Third Population is a sensitive and uncompromising portrayal of daily life in this singular psychiatric health facility where patients are encouraged to build human relationships in spite of the difficulties that mental illness can pose. As the supervisors and caregivers take part in the daily activities of their patients, differences are erased and empathic bonds are formed, with the result that sometimes it is difficult to distinguish the patients from the caregivers.
Author Aur�lien Ducoudray and illustrator Jeff Pourqui� immersed themselves for a time in the culture of La Chesnaie. Like everyone there, including the patients, supervisors, and caregivers, they took part in the daily chores of the clinic, cooking and cleaning. They participated in group events and even led a comics workshop to teach the residents about their craft. The Third Population is the engaging, inspiring, and often poignantly funny result of this project.
The Third Population is a sensitive and uncompromising portrayal of daily life in this singular psychiatric health facility where patients are encouraged to build human relationships in spite of the difficulties that mental illness can pose. As the supervisors and caregivers take part in the daily activities of their patients, differences are erased and empathic bonds are formed, with the result that sometimes it is difficult to distinguish the patients from the caregivers.
120 pages, Hardcover
First published May 3, 2018
46 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
Read
October 30, 2022Content notes are fairly predictable based on the subject matter.
There is one depiction of a violent incident, it takes up three pages but, at least for me, it was a fairly general audience level of violence.
Although, like most European comics I come across, this book is not actually rated.
Getting to the subject matter first, we will circle back to the creative team later.
Keywords that came to mind were: community, psychiatric, colour, conversation, and expression.
The synopsis is "Founded in 1956, the French psychiatric clinic La Chesnaie is an open and welcoming facility that houses about one hundred people of all ages. It provides traditional forms of care for people with serious mental illness, but it does so in a uniquely supportive environment where patients and caregivers participate equally in the day-to-day operations of the clinic. The driving force of La Chesnaie is the "Club," a nonprofit organization serving as a liaison between the clinic and the outside world. It arranges cultural and recreational outings for the patients as well as activities like concerts and exhibitions that bring the public to La Chesnaie. As a result, days at the clinic are quite lively and never routine.
Author Aurélien Ducoudray and illustrator Jeff Pourquié immersed themselves for a time in the culture of La Chesnaie. Like everyone there, including the patients, supervisors, and caregivers, they took part in the daily chores of the clinic, cooking and cleaning. They participated in group events and even led a comics workshop to teach the residents about their craft. *The Third Population* is the engaging, inspiring, and often poignantly funny result of this project.
*The Third Population* is a sensitive and uncompromising portrayal of daily life in this singular psychiatric health facility where patients are encouraged to build human relationships in spite of the difficulties that mental illness can pose. As the supervisors and caregivers take part in the daily activities of their patients, differences are erased and empathic bonds are formed, with the result that sometimes it is difficult to distinguish the patients from the caregivers."
But who are Aurélien Ducoudray and Jeff Pourquié?
Well, clicking over to Europe Comics (dot) com; Belgium scriptwriter Aurélien Ducoudray is described as "Having graduated from high school with a diploma in economics, [he] worked as a journalist before finally starting his career as a scriptwriter. Criss-crossing the globe armed with his notepad and pen, Ducoudray has produced reports for various media, both photographic and for television. His start in the comics field dates back to 2010. Since then he has seen his work published by Futuropolis, as well as "The grocery" with publisher Ankama and ... (Bitter Russia) with publisher Grand Angle."
And then sliding over to lambiek (dot) net, French born Jeff Pourquie artist is described as "active in several artistic fields, like sculpting, painting and jazz music. He started creating comics for the magazine in 1990... Since 1998 Pourquié has combined his "direct colors" technique with graphic data processing and traditional graphism."
Looking at the writing, I would say I was a bit leery about picking up this book, as I generally am with outsiders looking in sort of comics. And while I'm not the definitive judge on these things, and I don't have the benefit of other people's discourse to bounce off of, I did feel like this was a fairly good example of that sort of thing being done pretty well. As usual, creators making themselves a more obvious character - not the centre of attention, but clearly defined and not a nebulous "un-biased" perspective. Which, in my own bias, does seem like the better way to go about things.
There was some discussion of how the creative team was going to obscure the identities of the subjects that they wrote about. Although I missed if any definitive choice was made. I assume names were changed, at the very least.
The slice of life approach also felt like an interesting choice. Obviously it's literally impossible to fully encompass all the sorts of things that happen in a community/facility like La Chesnaie; so it was good to see so much diversity, and I liked how outspoken people in the book were about the diversity of life in and around La Chesnaie; always pointing towards more understanding and less judgement. Living an ocean away and reading this as a translated work, I'm not sure if all boxes and stereotypes were avoided in total, but it seemed like they did to me.
The art was also pretty interesting. The style fluctuated a lot, but in ways that felt like they accentuated the story being told. Dynamic, but easy enough to follow; I was a bit surprised by how fast of a read it turned out to be.
Looking at the different kinds of representation, obviously when it comes to nonfiction these things can become a bit more limited.
Ability and disability are obviously pretty central to the narrative. At least of the mental kind; otherwise I was left wondering a bit about the physically accessibility of the facility. Not that we have that all figured out on this side of the pond.
It was interesting, as a reader, that when we do get to the term the third population in the book itself it is explained to us as that the third population is actually the outsiders of Le Chesnaie. The patients being the first population and the staff being the second. Which kind of flips some ideas that one might have going into a comic on their head.
Gender felt fairly diverse, even if actual discussion of that, sexuality, and class were not touched on.
Race seemed a little lacking and I wasn't sure if the choice to depict the one violent person as a brown bull was playing with any sort of stereotypes I'm not familiar with.
To conclude, certainly not a must read, but pretty interesting. Maybe I'm being a bit too cynical, but I feel like many idealic communities like these has turned out to have some pretty dark shadows. So, can't shake that feeling entirely... But obviously there is a real need to treat people better.
There is one depiction of a violent incident, it takes up three pages but, at least for me, it was a fairly general audience level of violence.
Although, like most European comics I come across, this book is not actually rated.
Getting to the subject matter first, we will circle back to the creative team later.
Keywords that came to mind were: community, psychiatric, colour, conversation, and expression.
The synopsis is "Founded in 1956, the French psychiatric clinic La Chesnaie is an open and welcoming facility that houses about one hundred people of all ages. It provides traditional forms of care for people with serious mental illness, but it does so in a uniquely supportive environment where patients and caregivers participate equally in the day-to-day operations of the clinic. The driving force of La Chesnaie is the "Club," a nonprofit organization serving as a liaison between the clinic and the outside world. It arranges cultural and recreational outings for the patients as well as activities like concerts and exhibitions that bring the public to La Chesnaie. As a result, days at the clinic are quite lively and never routine.
Author Aurélien Ducoudray and illustrator Jeff Pourquié immersed themselves for a time in the culture of La Chesnaie. Like everyone there, including the patients, supervisors, and caregivers, they took part in the daily chores of the clinic, cooking and cleaning. They participated in group events and even led a comics workshop to teach the residents about their craft. *The Third Population* is the engaging, inspiring, and often poignantly funny result of this project.
*The Third Population* is a sensitive and uncompromising portrayal of daily life in this singular psychiatric health facility where patients are encouraged to build human relationships in spite of the difficulties that mental illness can pose. As the supervisors and caregivers take part in the daily activities of their patients, differences are erased and empathic bonds are formed, with the result that sometimes it is difficult to distinguish the patients from the caregivers."
But who are Aurélien Ducoudray and Jeff Pourquié?
Well, clicking over to Europe Comics (dot) com; Belgium scriptwriter Aurélien Ducoudray is described as "Having graduated from high school with a diploma in economics, [he] worked as a journalist before finally starting his career as a scriptwriter. Criss-crossing the globe armed with his notepad and pen, Ducoudray has produced reports for various media, both photographic and for television. His start in the comics field dates back to 2010. Since then he has seen his work published by Futuropolis, as well as "The grocery" with publisher Ankama and ... (Bitter Russia) with publisher Grand Angle."
And then sliding over to lambiek (dot) net, French born Jeff Pourquie artist is described as "active in several artistic fields, like sculpting, painting and jazz music. He started creating comics for the magazine in 1990... Since 1998 Pourquié has combined his "direct colors" technique with graphic data processing and traditional graphism."
Looking at the writing, I would say I was a bit leery about picking up this book, as I generally am with outsiders looking in sort of comics. And while I'm not the definitive judge on these things, and I don't have the benefit of other people's discourse to bounce off of, I did feel like this was a fairly good example of that sort of thing being done pretty well. As usual, creators making themselves a more obvious character - not the centre of attention, but clearly defined and not a nebulous "un-biased" perspective. Which, in my own bias, does seem like the better way to go about things.
There was some discussion of how the creative team was going to obscure the identities of the subjects that they wrote about. Although I missed if any definitive choice was made. I assume names were changed, at the very least.
The slice of life approach also felt like an interesting choice. Obviously it's literally impossible to fully encompass all the sorts of things that happen in a community/facility like La Chesnaie; so it was good to see so much diversity, and I liked how outspoken people in the book were about the diversity of life in and around La Chesnaie; always pointing towards more understanding and less judgement. Living an ocean away and reading this as a translated work, I'm not sure if all boxes and stereotypes were avoided in total, but it seemed like they did to me.
The art was also pretty interesting. The style fluctuated a lot, but in ways that felt like they accentuated the story being told. Dynamic, but easy enough to follow; I was a bit surprised by how fast of a read it turned out to be.
Looking at the different kinds of representation, obviously when it comes to nonfiction these things can become a bit more limited.
Ability and disability are obviously pretty central to the narrative. At least of the mental kind; otherwise I was left wondering a bit about the physically accessibility of the facility. Not that we have that all figured out on this side of the pond.
It was interesting, as a reader, that when we do get to the term the third population in the book itself it is explained to us as that the third population is actually the outsiders of Le Chesnaie. The patients being the first population and the staff being the second. Which kind of flips some ideas that one might have going into a comic on their head.
Gender felt fairly diverse, even if actual discussion of that, sexuality, and class were not touched on.
Race seemed a little lacking and I wasn't sure if the choice to depict the one violent person as a brown bull was playing with any sort of stereotypes I'm not familiar with.
To conclude, certainly not a must read, but pretty interesting. Maybe I'm being a bit too cynical, but I feel like many idealic communities like these has turned out to have some pretty dark shadows. So, can't shake that feeling entirely... But obviously there is a real need to treat people better.
February 28, 2021
An endearing and direct portrait of a holistic psychiatric community (facility) in France and the people who inhabit it. The art is gorgeous, and the vignettes are intriguing. You can tell that the creators went into the space with sole intention of telling a real story. There is no sugar coating the difficulties with working such a vulnerable population, and this account shows the entirety of that process. La Chesnaie seems to be creating a unique space to distribute psychiatric treatment and it makes me happy to know that places like this exist for those who need them.
June 9, 2021
I am a PhD research scholar in the field of Graphic medicine. I focus on mental illness narratives from an angle of treatment prospects in psychiatry. This book is what I regard as a graphic testimony of an alternative to modern psychiatry. The Third Population is a graphic account of a writer Ducoudray and artist Jeff's visits into Chesnaie- a facility for treating mentally ill people in Blois, France. They reproduce a sincere perspective on the innovative and groundbreaking methods of Chesnaie, in sometimes sombre and sometimes vivid panels. This is an engaging work and it holds a special place in mental illness narratives in graphic memoirs because it portrays and promotes a practical alternative to currently existing mental health treatment practices.
January 11, 2021
An fascinating look at an entirely different approach (especially in the USA) of treating mental illness.
April 27, 2024
Interesting graphic novel documenting a mental health housing and treatment facility in France.
Want to read
March 18, 2020Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.
December 30, 2021
Pas forcément mon type de pratique et/ou comment j'imagine le soin psychiatrique.
Cependant, le regard du scénariste est très intéressant et destigmatisant. La narration est immersive, on se retrouve facilement projeté dans l'ambiance.
Les graphismes sont très beaux, l'utilisation de la couleur est rare mais toujours bien réfléchie, ce qui rend certaines pages assez époustouflantes.
Cependant, le regard du scénariste est très intéressant et destigmatisant. La narration est immersive, on se retrouve facilement projeté dans l'ambiance.
Les graphismes sont très beaux, l'utilisation de la couleur est rare mais toujours bien réfléchie, ce qui rend certaines pages assez époustouflantes.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews