View of THE STATUS OF MENTAL HEALTH IN INDIA: A PSYCHO-SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE

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VOLUME: 09, Special Issue 04, (IC-SPIPS-2022), Paper id-IJIERM-IX-IV, May 2022 63

THE STATUS OF MENTAL HEALTH IN INDIA: A PSYCHO-SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE Prof. Tulika Mukharjee

Abstract- This paper provides an overview of the theoretical framework of the psychological and spiritual perspective of mental health reviews and describes the advance psychological and dynamic spiritual research can foster our understanding the alarming threats of mental health in India. It also covers the psychological and spiritual mental health movements, healthy mental life principles and services. It focuses on the duo perspectives to foresee the scopes with respect to therapy, treatment and research in mental health issues of India.

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Mental Health in India

In India, people lose healthy mental health due to the lack of lack of awareness and sensitivity about the issue and there is a big stigma among the people who are suffering from any of the mental health issues. Moreover with severe mental illnesses people often prefer to temples, occultists and shrinesover to the doctors.

The World Health Organization, 1962 has defined mental health as the balanced development of the total personality which enables one to interact creatively and harmoniously with society.

In 1984 Golderson, defined mental health as a state of mind characterized by emotional well-being, relative freedom from anxiety and disabling symptoms, and a capacity to establish constructive relationships and cope with the ordinary demands and stress in life.

In the early 19^thcentury the concept of mental health has been evolved by the preliminary reports of White House Conference and it was defined as “the adjustment of individuals to themselves and the world at large with maximum of effectiveness, satisfaction, cheerfulness, and socially considerate behavior and the ability of facing and accepting the realities of life.

In 1983, according to Lin the poor mental health of people in developing countries has come to be under cognizance and the mental health aspects of health care and human services universally lag behind other services.

Developing countries like India, goes through the process of industrialization with frequently changing policies of the Government. The success of industrial growth depends on the men behind the machines whose mental health care has to be taken with a great care and concern for their well-being.

In 1965, Kornhuser defined mental health as the behavior, success, happiness, and excellence of functioning as a person. Mental health is not the mere absence of mental illness, but is a quality of an individual about others and how he is able to face the realities of life. It is the person‟s ability to balance feelings, desires, ambitious, ideas and competence. The individual‟s state of mental health is not static, but is continuously changing, depending, depending upon the individuals actions and the factors acting upon the individuals.

The basic determining factors of mental health status are a happy home, an adequate educational facilities and a healthy community.

2 MENTAL HEALTH MOVEMENT: PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SPIRITUAL

In India mentally ill people found in shelters in temples or retained in families, members accepting them as inevitable part of the family. There is a mentioning of the mental diseases in Atharva Veda from which Ayurveda was derived. Also, from South Indian origin Siddha medicine contributed for the mental diseases and therapy. Similarly, the Unani system has found to be advanced in terms of classification and treatment of mental diseases.

Before the 18^th century, mentally ill persons were subjected to inhuman treatment such as being locking up in small cells, flogging, torture etc. In the 19^th century, Pinel in France and Dix in America found a scientific orientation to the problems of mental illness.

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Kraepelin who gave a classification of mental diseases, based on body types which is still the basis of classification by WHO and also classifications used by different nations in the world.

In 1973, Blonic has sketched the activities to deal with community health problems such as:

1. Intervention in the community

2. Intervention with a defined population or catchment area 3. Indirect services such as consultation and education 4. To plan strategy to reach a large number of people 5. Planning to meet the needs of high risk population.

6. A variety of manpower sources to be employed, including trained volunteers, members of target group.

7. Control and decision making regarding programs to be shared between the professional and community.

3 PRINCIPLES OF HEALTHY MENTAL LIFE:

In 1970, Bernard has proposed important principles of healthy mental life are as under-

 Good physical health: It is based on the ancient Roman belief- “Sound mind can only exist in a sound body”

 Insight: It will enable a person to have control over his or her behavior in terms of interactions with others in the intermediate and distant environment.

 Satisfying social relations: Mental health depends upon social relations with members of the family, friends, colleagues, and supervisors in the place of work. In 1953, Sullivan has stressed that social relations is the core of mental health.

 Confidence: It helps not only to release one‟s own pent up feelings and tensions but also has the advantage of having his behavior assessed by somebody other than himself.

 Planning life: Proper planning of day to day life is important.

 Involvement in work: Whatever work is taken up, total involvement is necessary.

 Attention to present situation: Paying attention to the present situation is important, so as to avoid past errors in the actions.

 Sense of humour: Developing a sense of humour is important.

3.1 Mental Health Services in India:

MH Services can be classified in three categories as therapy, training and research. There are guidelines from WHO and IMC for organizing mental health services in the country. The two apex agencies and the experiences of practicing psychiatrist, Shunder and Sharma in 1984, suggested that psychologists have an important role to play in the field of mental health and mental illness.

In India, WHO estimates that the burden of mental health problems is 2443 disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) per 100 00 population. The age-adjusted suicide rate per 100 000 population is 21.1. During the period of 2012-2030, the economic loss due to mental health conditions is estimated at USD 1.03 trillion.

Mental health conditions are increasing worldwide due to the reason of demographic changes, there has been a 13% rise in mental health conditions and substance use disorders within the last decade 2017.

3.2 Psychological perspective of mental health:

“Psychology covers normal mental functions and behaviors and addresses the question when, why and how they can become dysfunctional. Therefore, psychology illustrates mental health and abnormal functions and behaviors, like in mental disorders with the goal of understanding individuals, groups and social systems”.

Models based on psychological constructs, methods and techniques for psychological interventions such as psychotherapy with the goal of preventing, treating and rehabilitating dysfunctional behavior and mental disorders.

Within this context of psychology, psychotherapy is defined as an applied clinical psychological domain discipline, dealing, generally spoken, with psychological treatments

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and interventions. More precisely psychotherapy has been defined as „clinically relevant, empirically supported interventions of any type that are based on knowledge and expertise in the psychological sciences using psychological methods and means (as opposed to drugs as in psychiatry), typically by communication and/or behavioural exercises‟ [Wittchen and Hoyer, 2011, p 4]. (2)

Psychological treatments and interventions might range from highly sophisticated psychotherapy, delivered by specialized psychotherapists, to the application of specific behavioural techniques as part of a broader treatment plan by any health provider, including web-based and e-health applications, whenever the criteria of the above definition are met and efficacy and/or effectiveness is established by randomized clinical trials or equivalent designs [van der Feltz-Cornelis and Adèr, 2000].(3) Because dysfunctional behavior has large and pervasive effects on health and ill health development and outcomes, there is a broad consensus in the scientific community that there is still vital to improve research with the goal to provide a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying adaptive and dysfunctional behavior, the developmental pathways and trajectories leading to dysfunctional and clinically significant behaviors as well as the determinants for these trajectories, the identification, by whatever means these determinants can be targeted and systematically influenced, and the mechanisms of behavior change with regard to the promotion of normal, adaptive health as well as the reduction or prevention of dysfunctional and clinically significant behaviors as in mental disorders.

3.3 Psychological Services:

Early Detection

Functional Assessment Placement services

Support services Individualized Instructions Parental Training

4 SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE OF MENTAL HEALTH

The decision making of people is influenced by spirituality as it encourages individuals to have better relationships with the people around them. Spirituality opens up the ways of dealing with people‟s stress and enhances the quality of their living, sense of purpose in life, inner peace, inner strength, self-control and vision.

In case of emotional vulnerability people suffering from mental illness get a sense of hope by talking with a spiritual person finding one can relaxed and find way out of the difficulties, conflicts of mind or any situation.

Spirituality fulfills following needs:

a. Gives meaning to life, illness, various crises and death b. Imparts sense of security for present and future c. Acceptance or rejection of other people

d. Provides psychosocial support

e. Gives strength when someone is facing life‟s crises or problems f. Facilitate healing of psychological disturbances

g. Spirituality appears to prevent persons from mental illness and it also helps all – h. To develop healthy behaviors and lifestyles

i. Find psychosocial support

j. Deal effectively with sufferings and problems of life

k. Empowers to handle negative emotions such as stress, anxiety, fears, anger and frustration [4].

REFERENCES

1. Ramalingam, P. (2013). Educational Psychology: Teaching and Learning Perspectives. McGraw-Hill Education.

2. Wittchen H-U, Hoyer J: Was istklinisch ePsychologie? Definitionen, Konzepte und Modelle; in dies (eds):

Klinische Psychologie und Psychotherapie, ed 2. Berlin, Springer, 2011, pp 4–25.

3. Van der Feltz-Cornelis CM, Adèr HJ: Randomization in psychiatric intervention research in the general practice setting. Int J Methods Psychiatr Res 2000; 9:134–142.

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4. Cohen, A. B., & Koenig, H. G. (2004). Religion and mental health. In C. Spielberger (Ed.), Encyclopedia of applied psychology (Vol. 3, pp. 255–258). Oxford, UK: Elsevier Academic Press.

5. https://www.webmd.com/balance/how-spirituality-affects-mental-health