In a small, soundproofed room at Niort Hospital, patients from the psychiatry department are participating in Radio Pinpon, an unconventional tool now fully integrated into the care program. The radio was created in 2018 by a now-retired nurse and is located in a building at the heart of the various psychiatry services. The small, windowless studio, with walls covered in posters of festivals or singers, serves as a "cocoon" for many patients. About twenty of them contribute chronicles, poems, interviews, or even "a bit crazy" shows, as they put it. Nathalie Micou, 53, a patient who has been aphasic for years after a series of traumas, now uses her voice to speak about disability and mental illness on the microphone of Radio Pinpon. She says, "In my life, there is clearly a before and an after. Care did not give me all the keys. With the radio, something was set free in me. And I realized that I did not need to self-harm to be heard." Including her family, which finally "listened to her," "a recognition after years of estrangement." At the controls of the radio are Thomas Gerbaud, 52, and Charlotte Hill, 60, full-time nurses in music therapy. Their care includes a choir, a music group, and the radio to which they dedicate one and a half days per week. They receive patients on medical referral, and there is no obligation to produce content. "Here, there is no obligation to produce, if some patients make a show but do not want to be broadcasted, that's okay, as long as it does them good," explains Gerbaud. This sound space allows patients to evolve their self-perception but also the perception of psychiatry, often considered "hermetic," says Gerbaud. "If we can change a little bit the image of psychiatry, by destigmatizing 'madness,' that's a bonus!" agrees Hill. With headphones on, Hill welcomes Thierry, a former archivist aged 57, who is wrapping up a series on experimental music. "I like the evanescent sounds," murmurs the man with a gray beard, for whom the radio is a way to less "linger on myself." When the recording starts, his voice transforms, becoming deeper and more confident. Nathan Sureau, a 29-year-old streamer followed for about ten years, settles into the studio, which is overwhelmed with CDs and vinyl records. "I was diagnosed with a kind of schizophrenia. I am not ashamed to say it, we need to talk about it to raise awareness and deconstruct the ideas we have about it," he says. This fan of rap has found among the nurses who accompany him "people of gold," and behind the microphone, "an infinite number of expression possibilities without any judgment." He has used AI to create a song in which he asks "for what reason my brain broke." "I'm a bit crazy, with the good side of things and the bad ones!" he jokes. Hill and Gerbaud say they "measure their luck" to have the support of the management, although the public hospital in general and the psychiatry sector in particular are in great distress. On September 17, the public psychiatry unions held a nationwide strike to denounce, among other things, the lack of resources and the shortage of staff, despite mental health having been declared a "national cause." "We don't know what the future will hold, and we know that our positions are not those we prioritize. But our tools are precious for the patients, and that has no price," say the two nurses.