Crowded Couch: 30 mn Indians need help

Richa decided to take her maid to a psychologist three months back. Reason: The maid had been uncommunicative and moody for some months. As Richa and her husband spent over 12 hours a day out of the house, their two daughters — aged four and eight — were mostly with the maid. Richa was worried that her depression could rub off on the girls.
Till some years ago, not one among Richa’s close acquaintances was visiting a psychologist.Over the past three years, two friends have opted for psychiatric help. A colleague says he is depressed though he’s yet to seek professional advice. One friend is part of a voluntary helpline for insomniacs — he’s one himself. Richa’s nephew is one of the many teenagers who call helplines for exam-related anxieties. Innumerable people she knows are taking reiki and Art of Living courses as stress-busters.
Check the Net and you find counsellors to help you cope with performance anxieties, anger management, relationship problems, social inadequacies like loneliness, shyness and ‘‘other uncomfortable feelings’’. Psychiatry OPDs are packed; psychologists are doing flourishing business; corporates are holding stress-management programmes and schools are opting for in-house counsellors. Are we becoming a nation on the couch? The National Mental Health Programme document says around 30 million Indians are in need of some form of mental health care. Every year 2.5 lakh new cases are reported. Thousands go unrecorded. ‘‘The country has only 3,000 qualified psychiatrists — not enough to cope with severe psychiatric illness like schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorders,’’ says Alok Sarin of Sitaram Bharatiya Research Institute, Delhi. ‘‘Those are the people you see at crowded waiting rooms.’’ However, he wonders whether life is more stressful today than it ever was. ‘‘Was there less stress during the World Wars? We are many more people now, and there’s much more awareness. So more people are seeking help.’’
Experts, however, agree that stress-related disorders need attention. Says Monica Kumar, clinical psychologist, VIMHANS: ‘‘Stress-management workshops reveal that there is a high degree of denial among professionals. They all feel if they go for yoga or reiki they would be fine. Admission of anxiety or insecurity is considered a sign of weakness.’’ They go in for counselling only when things start getting out of hand.
But there is a change in the attitude of youngsters, says Kumar. ‘‘Many more cases of adolescent stress have been coming in the last three years. Mostly it’s school and exam-related stress and counselling definitely helps in resolving the conflict between interest, aptitude and expectation.’’ Is counselling the only way out? Kumar says it depends on the extent of the problem. Sarin agrees, ‘‘Alternative therapies can work for milder forms of stress. You need to work out what’s best for you.’’In India, say psychologists, support systems haven’t completely collapsed. So we may not need therapy to help us get over our ‘‘grief when our pet dies’’ as they do in the West... yet.