Saturday, June 23, 2012

PSYCHOLOGISTS: UNRECOGNISED AND UNDERRATED MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS



Psychologists are mostly unrecognised and underrated in a world where psychiatrists and pharma companies rule the roost as far as mental health is concerned.

In terms of payment, psychologists are usually paid less than the psychiatrist. In most mental health settings there is a pecking order with the psychiatrists on top. At most mental health service internship cites, psychiatric interns would be paid for their services, most psychology interns wouldn’t be.

When some mental health issue comes up, media will contact the psychiatrist and get their opinion. Even though on an average the psychiatrist spends three minutes with their patients and psychologists fifty.  The psychiatrist will treat the symptoms of disease with medications, and the psychologist will seek to discover the roots of the disease and deal with the emotional implications, which no drug can treat. Psychiatrists know more about disease, psychologists know more about the person. The psychiatrist knows better the workings of a drug, the psychologist knows better the emotional dynamics that often trigger and maintain the disease.

The other day (June 23) an article appeared on the Editorial pages of The Hindustan Times in which the author discussed the Bill on the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences, passed recently by both the Raja Sabha and the Lok Sabha and which is awaiting consent of the President.

The author noted that there is need for “wide ranging national debate” on the bill (which by the way should have happened, and did not happen before it was passed by the two houses of parliament) and wrote: “Not by politicians or NGO’s but by parents, principals, psychiatrists, paediatricians, other stakeholders like parents and guardians, and the teens themselves….” (p.08). Notice the conspicuous absence of the mention of psychologists!

Yet, it is the psychologist who deals with the impact of the abuse on children and helps them to move toward healing. Drugs and paediatric care cannot do that. It is the psychologist who has a better understanding of the contexts and dynamics that lead to abuse. Yet, the psychiatrist and the paediatrician are invited to the debate but not the psychologist. Any debate on the Protection of Children from Sexual Abuse has to involve the psychologist who has a significant and irreplaceable contribution to make.

And it is time, the media woke up to the existence of psychologists and their expertise in the treatment of mental and emotional illness, particularly in the treatment of trauma that results from abuse and neglect.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

TEACHERS’S WORKSHOP AT SOUTH CITY INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, KOLKOTA


I was invited to facilitate a Workshop for the High School teachers of South City International School in Kolkata on 14-15 June.



The school building is impressive and its infrastructure and facilities state-of-the-art with central air-conditioning. The school is only 4 years old and has had a very impressive growth. Starting with about 100 students in the first year, today the school has more than 1000 students and about 70 teachers. The high school section has 35 teachers, many of them with prior experience in other schools.

On the first day, the  Workshop was organised  around the theme “Enhancing Institutional Excellence.” I used structured exercises, videos and latest insights from organisational psychology to present the crucial ingredients that contribute to institutional excellence and helped the teachers to assess the dynamics at South City International that contribute to and stand in the way of institutional excellence.

The explorations on the second day centred around the person and functions of the teacher and focused on the theme of “The Emotionally Sensitive Teacher.” Starting with Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligence, the Workshop used the concepts of basic emotional needs from Self Determination Theory, and of Mirroring and Idealising from Self Psychology to help the teachers look at the level of their emotional sensitivity and provided tools and approaches to enhance it.

The teachers were extremely satisfied with the Workshop. A number of them said this was “the best of all the workshops” they ever had.  It had helped them to “enhance cohesion” among themselves, “open up communication channels” and create “greater connectedness and trust” and “be more aware of and sensitive to of the emotional needs” of students and colleagues.

“The workshop has touched us not only professionally but also personally. Its effect goes much beyond our life in the school.” This was another common sentiment expressed by the teachers as they reflected on their experience of the workshop.