Destigmatizing Mental Health

[Music]

psychology

and psychiatry the disciplines

what we call today as mental health are

relatively new

in the world of modern sciences

only a century back

these branches started in europe and

then spread all over the world

but for asian countries especially the

indian

peninsula the branches of psychology

psychiatry mental health

were integrally woven

with culture with spirituality

and with the traditional wisdom

many of the religions that

rooted in this soil the vedanta

philosophy the buddhist thought the

jainism

even the sikh religion all religions

talked about

self-development self-enlightenment

and integrated the principles of what we

call

self-development and self-acceptance in

their own philosophical

teachings and their needs

as far as mental disorders were

concerned

there were traditional healers and the

society was

also much more prominent it gave

a certain place of dignity to people

who had physical disabilities mental

disabilities

and even chronic mental illnesses

there was a widespread acceptance in

this song

the modern psychiatry or mental health

came to this country

along with the british rulers they

brought the model of

modern medicine and this model

essentially was

a biomedical model the physical part of

it

was very easily accepted because it had

a power

of quick symptom alleviation

but the treatments on the treatments on

mental disorders

were also in their infancy there in the

western world as well

so the model that was brought in this

country was that of mental asylums

segregating people with mental illnesses

in hospitals that were akin

to jails this model of segregation had

no other substitute

so the culture and the society in this

country

had to accept it because it had no other

better alternative but till the time

it was unavoidable taking treatment

of modern psychiatry was not considered

a very favorable thing

so psychiatry psychology and mental

health

faced two problems one was

acceptance of the medical fraternity

body and bodily medicine was given its

due respect

but not mind because that dichotomy

was inherent in the system itself and

the society

did not favor did not accept

this particular model of treating

mentally ill people

and therefore in this country of 131

crores

population even today how many trained

psychiatrists that we have just over

seven thousand

and how many psychologists we have some

more

thousands but that’s it

the problem with this particular model

of segregating mentally ill individuals

was

that it alienated the society and

secondly

the whole outlook was very restricted

the concept of mental health was equated

to treatment and that to symptomatic

treatment

of mental disorders today

when we think about mental health in the

21st century perspective

we say that mental health has three

layers the first layer of course is that

of disorders

but the treatment needs to extend itself

out of symptomatic relief to

partnership with that person suffering

from mental illness

participation of his entire family in

the process because we

in our country have family support

which is a resource which is lying there

in abundance

and needs to be utilized for the benefit

of that person and for the family

and therefore participation of this

family structure the social structure

in total rehabilitation of that person

becomes very important similarly the

support groups

people with mentally people with mental

illness coming together

their families expressing together and

working

in solidarity becomes a very important

aspect

of treatment of disorders where

everybody participates

the second segment that is of this

stress

today in the consumeristic society

individual aspirations are flying

and people are thinking more and more in

a self-centered narcissistic way

falling prey to a lot of short-term

glaciers

and the gap between aspiration and

performance

between performance and the prevailing

situation

gives rise to a lot of distress and

distress

is a crucible for disorders

unfortunately

most of our clinical psychiatrists are

trained

to treat disorders but

treating distress requires a different

type

of approach a more psychological

psychosocial approach

sadly a lot of our colleagues are

lacking in this

this is where in fact the distress

management

that is where we need to focus because

distress is prevalent in

all age groups and then comes

development at every age

every stage people require

two types of inputs one how to make

their coping effective

and secondly how to gel productivity

with happiness and if

the education of development the

psychological development

is given properly then of course the

distress will be low

and if the stress is low the disorders

will

remain under considerable limits

so the holistic approach of looking

towards mental health

covers disorders distress

and development now as it is apparent

that this whole gamut of mental health

therefore

is not limited to only mental health

professionals

and the challenge therefore is that

unless we all come together

we will not be able to be stigmatized

mental health

so let’s come to this important point as

to what

is stigma stigma

is essentially a rigid negative belief

that is held steadfastly irrespective of

a lot of data that is there against it

and even if it is very self-defeating

and counterproductive

in its nature and

stigmas generally are a problem with any

society

in terms of social advancement it’s an

obstacle

for any kind of open view point of

looking at a particular concept

in terms of mental health the stigma

operates at two levels

one is stark and the other is settled

starkville means that oh

all psychiatric illnesses are lunacy

these are mad people and the doctors

of these mad people only give sleeping

medicines

that’s the kind of a stark stigma it

is based on ignorance but

even if i have access to knowledge i

don’t use it

that’s when it is called stigma and

you have a very subtle stigma the subtle

stigma means

that i am in charge of my mind and if

there is a problem

that i have in my mind i will solve it

and if i require help that means that i

am weak

and my mind is weak so labeling

yourself as a weak minded person

whenever you are facing distress is also

a subtle type of stigma

so the rigid negative belief is to be

replaced

by a flexible healthy positive belief

that’s destigmatization so what does it

mean

it means that we need to tell the

society the people the families

that your mind and your body are

integral parts of your existence

and as your bodies can face problems so

can mind

and there are ways to deal with it

scientific ways to deal with it

also if you work on

your thinking emotions and behavior

in many many scientific validated ways

you can be a better human being

you can really link others interest

with self interest that is

destigmatization

but it’s a process it’s such a long

process that it has no

end because beliefs don’t change

easily you require a collective effort

although the mental health professionals

have to take

a lead in these efforts it’s important

that the community is linked with it

is related to it at

our experimental laboratory called

institute for

psychological health for last three

decades

all of us have been functioning to

find out can we destigmatize mental

health

and we found out of our own experiences

that it’s not

only the psychologists and psychiatrists

and counselors but members of the

society

if they are linked to your cause

then a lot of initiatives can be taken

because unless you are

a team you can’t make a social impact

so for making a social impact team

effort is very important and secondly

you need to have

an umbrella of services so

and in our center or in our

experiment we decided to give services

to almost all strata of people or age

groups of people

and we started reaching out to society

with a lot of developmental initiatives

projects that ran for years together

and of course distress alleviating

activities including continuous training

and development programs for

all strata of the society so we tried to

cover

the disorder distress and development

segment

through all these activities and we

found

that unless you are consistent unless

you are very creative

and unless you go on and on and on

despite

the response and the resistance you

can’t

really change the belief but once you

can

then things start changing society first

looks at you with some

kind of indifference then curiosity and

then starts aligning itself with your

cause

today many times we see

people coming to our place are institute

with a variety of needs and those needs

mind you

are not only the troubling symptoms of

mental disorders

today an executive an entrepreneur comes

to us

a student comes to us for future

guidance artist comes to us for

development

of his talents athlete comes because he

wants to

improve on his merits so when all these

people start coming to you when you have

not only addicts people suffering from

schizophrenia bipolar disorder

but parents teachers

entrepreneurs everybody coming to a

place the place

becomes a common normal place

it doesn’t remain a place where mad

people

come for treatment and that my friends

is

destigmatization

and what we have learned on our way

throughout our work

some important messages first that one

has to go

out of the clinical paradigm

it’s not only writing prescriptions it’s

not only taking a 45

minute session with your client but it’s

walking that

extra mind with the community and

when you go out of that clinical

paradigm then you really start

aligning yourself with the social

cultural and emotional realities

of the community that you are working

with

sometimes you will see a need in the

community quite ahead of your times

and therefore there will be initiatives

which

won’t give you response this has

happened with us time and again

but we have learned our lesson and we

have persisted

consistently and creatively and it’s the

umbrella that works

if you want to make a social impact you

need to have

an umbrella of services given by a

comprehensive team

of committed individuals and then only

we can add to the emotional immunity

of our society the concept of emotional

immunity has now become more important

in the post-quran world

because corona has taught us so many

lessons

and it has taught us that having a sound

mind is as important

perhaps more important in addition to

having a sound body

in these times one important

theme related to mental health is going

to be resilience

will have to be a resilient world

culture and for that we will require

a scientifically validated mental health

paradigm

unless we have that then there would be

people

and agencies that would spread

pseudoscientific

pseudo-philosophical pseudo-religious

paradigms

and vulnerable society can fall prey to

it

so it’s very important that mental

health doesn’t

remain a concern related to only a group

of professionals

but becomes a kind of

a universal goal for everybody

sociologists warn that for any culture

the post pandemic types are very crucial

on one side people would become

more sensitive about hygiene and health

but on the other side

because of the economic setbacks the

social disintegration people will face

a lot of challenges and therefore there

are going to be these

two key words writing and resilience

the social writing behavior starts in a

distressed mind

and it’s the rational mind that gives

rise to resilience

therefore mental health today

has come to the central stage of our

society and culture

if we want to have a more resilient

world then there is

no substitute to rationality aldous

huxley

talked about the brave new world

we need to work on making

a empathic rational new world

if we do that then that would be the

greatest greatest greatest learning that

this

species would have learned out of these

difficult times

thank you