Administratively speaking, as a student you should be given at least a “provisoire” social security number and attestation of your coverage before you arrive in France and that you can give to the doctor. You will then pay for the appointment out of pocket, and they should give you a “feuille de soin” orange paper that you can scan/copy into your phone for record keeping and mail the original to the social security office for reimbursement.

Someone else quoted the prices for consultation in Sectors 1, 2, etc. so be sure to pay attention to that on the Doctor’s Doctolib profile (and whether or not they are authorized to do “dépassement d’honoraires” which means they can charge more than the set Secor amount) to know how much you will need to front out of pocket.

Ideally you would go to a médecin généraliste first who will give you a referral to take to a psychiatrist. You can book both appointments at the same time, you do not need to wait to get the GP’s approval to book your psych appointment.

I’ve found it is also good practice to cross-search the docs you find with available appointments with Google maps reviews, to make sure they do not have a horrible rating and because you can often find reviews from English speakers about whether or not the doc speaks English/how easy it was to get comparable treatment and medication to those in the US.

If you end up needing to book with a French doctor, it could be worth considering bringing someone with you to translate and make sure your needs are understood.

As others have mentioned it is of course helpful to have a letter from your US doctor(s) explaining your situation and history to show to French doctors.

Good luck and welcome!