Awareness is the key to fight stigma. Psychologists and Psychiatrists should work together and should be communicative,” said Psychiatrist at Gandhi Medical College, JP Agarwal.
He was addressing the Tea and Talk Conference held on Monday at Hotel Residency. The conference was organised by Mind Plus life, an awareness initiative of Excelsior to observe the World Mental Health Day. The conference was held on the topic ‘Challenges Faced by Mental Health Professionals in Bhopal’.
It is to be noted that various noted Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Counsellors and Educationists of Bhopal participated in the conference. They discussed the challenges faced by the psychologists and psychiatrist at different levels of counselling or treating the patient. They focused on depression among teenagers.
The session began with welcoming the guests by presenting them the plant saplings by Director of Mind Plus life Noorjahan Khan. The experts who were present during the session included Dr. Anupama Maheshwari, Sonam Chhatwani, Onkush Verma, Nidhi Sahu, Beenu lamba, Dr. Aditi Saxena, Dr. Rajesh Sharma, Deepti Singhal, Dr. Poorja Mehta, Dr. JP Agarwal and Shaili Misra.
later, Dr. Jagmeet Chawla, Dr. Ritu Nanda, Counselor Kala Mohan addressed the conference and put forth their views related to challenges that a mental health professional faces specially in a city like Bhopal followed with a group discussion.
The main issues which evolved during the discussion were lack of awareness amongst common people about Mental Health and their reluctance to seek professional help due to stigma attached to mental illnesses. As there is a need to take medical help if somebody is affected by some bodily ailments: similarly taking timely consultation and support can help control and manage mental illnesses too.
To add variety and attraction to the program a dance crew named Incredible Hip hoppers presented a few dances. The dances were beautifully choreographed on the issues of psychological challenges faced by the students, children and women.