Taking Mental Health to the Community: Traversing the last Mile
Editorial
“Mental health is not a destination, but a process.
It's about how you drive, not where you're going."
- Noam Shpancer (Clinical Psychologist and Author of ‘The Good Psychologist’)
In the past few years, the world has suffered a lot due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has significantly affected the mental health of adults and children. In a 2021 survey, almost half of Americans reported to be having recent symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder and 10% of them felt their mental health needs were not being met. The overall rate of anxiety, depression, and substance use disorder has increased tremendously since the beginning of the pandemic. Those who had mental illnesses prior and contracted COVID-19 were at a greater risk to die than those who did not have them. Hence we felt we ought to focus on this theme of mental health and well-being in the inaugural issue.
Mental Health is a state of well-being that enables people to realize their abilities, cope with the stresses of life, learn well, work well, and contribute positively to their community. It is a basic human right. Mental health has become an area of increasing importance worldwide as it contributes to a high burden of disease as well as loss of life. Various Global Mental Health programs focus on anti-stigma campaigns, the crucial area of awareness and protection of human rights.
Mental health risks can be found in different societies at different scales, which heighten the risk for individuals, families, and communities. Ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Israel/ Gaza and the natural calamities like the Cyclone Michaung in Tamil Nadu, India are live examples of threats which heighten the risk for entire populations. Thus, these will include disease outbreaks, humanitarian emergencies, economic downturns, forced displacement and growing crisis of climatic conditions. Mental health promotion and prevention intervention is done by identifying the individual, social and structural determinants of health to build resilience and establish supportive environments for mental health.
Management of mental health care and treatment should be done majorly through community-based mental health care initiatives, which are more accessible and acceptable and deliver recovery outcomes for people with mental health conditions.
At Dr. M. L. Dhawale Memorial Homoeopathic Medical Institute (MLDMHI), Palghar, we have been involved in various community mental health initiatives since a few decades. The current set of community mental health initiatives involve a network of various interrelated services, in which our postgraduate students play a major role.
(About the photo: The above artwork adorns the walls of the Psychiatry OPD at Dr. M. L. Dhawale Memorial Trust’s Hospital, Palghar. It is prepared by the school students of one of the schools, where the Dept. of Psychiatry runs their school mental health & wellbeing programme and was gifted to team of doctors who used to be a part of the project)
The learner when gets involved in community care activities, it not only allows the learner to learn, but also sows in a seed for developing healthy communities. These seeds eventually grow on to be bigger trees when the return to their native lands and spread their branches and go on to work for the betterment of the communities around them- in turn building a healthy nation. The current initiatives of community mental health are:
1) Dandekar College, Palghar- students mental well being initiatives.
2) Community care activities (Bhopoli community centre)
3) Promotion of mental health awareness on World Mental Health Day.
4) National Seminar on Psychology and Homoeopathy and “Foundations of Psychology and Homoeopathy” book launch.
Dandekar College activities- Department of Psychiatry, MLDMHI; started this student centric activity, “A holistic approach to preventing and managing mental health problems and promoting mental health in students of Dandekar College”. The postgraduate learners, under the supervision of the faculty, actively took up the task and had a good learning experience, which they share.
Community care activities- Postgraduate learners are actively involved in the community mental health projects. The institute floated the concept of “Barefoot Doctors” with the simple objective being of promoting mental health and substance abuse in rural areas. The process employed was making the population aware of the significance of mental health and consequences of substance abuse.
World Mental health day- Every year the Institute celebrates this special day with a unique theme, well arranged and managed by the Psychiatry department. This year they made it even more productive and informative by inviting Dr Bharat Vatwani (MD, Psychiatry), a Ramon Magsaysay Award winner, who shared heart-warming experiences while uniting abandoned and lost psychiatry patients with their families who had given up on them. This humane approach was inspired from the legendary Baba Amte (who is known for his path-breaking work of caring for patients with leprosy who had no homes and were similarly abandoned). The postgraduate learners got a good exposure and learning from this seminar, which was a revelation.
National Seminar on Psychology, Homoeopathy, and book launch of “Foundations of Psychology and Homoeopathy”- The National Seminar on Psychology and Homoeopathy was held at the Mayor's Hall, Mumbai on 2nd October 2023. Dr. Tarkeshwar Jain, President, Homoeopathy Educational Board (HEB) of the National Commission of Homoeopathy (NCH) was the Chief guest and the Guests of Honor were Dr. Mangesh Jatkar, Member of the HEB and Dr. Rajkumar Patil, Dean, Homoeopathy Faculty, Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS), Nashik. The book “Foundations of Psychology and Homoeopathy” was released, and the respected guests felicitated all the authors and the editor.
The detils are present in the subsequent posts of this issue. Hope you all embrace the first issue of the “Integrated Homoeopathic Newsletter” (IHN) which reflects the efforts by the postgraduate learners of Psychiatry department of Dr. M. L. Dhawale Memorial Homoeopathic Institute, Palghar in spreading awareness, promotion and prevention of mental health diseases and substance use disorder through Homoeopathy. We eagerly await your responses to this new initiative so that we can incorporate your feedbacks in the next issue.
Happy Reading!
Regards,
Dr. Sonam Tiwari Mishra
Assistant Editor, Journal of Integrated Standardized Homoeopathy (JISH)
Assistant Professor, Dept of Practice of Medicine, MLDMHI, Palghar