Establishment
of psychological-cum-career counselling cells in all educational institutions
can help students overcome troubling emotions and disturbing thoughts besides
helping them choose a right career at an appropriate time
Socio-economic, physical, emotional and mental stress produced by the ever-increasing needs, demands and challenges of the contemporary times push the populations in general and youth in particular towards uncertainty, insecurity, instability and fallibility. As a result, some of the budding youth studying in schools and colleges often tend to make mistakes and wrong decisions in absence of proper guidance and supervision. Under peer group pressure or due to lack of awareness they sometimes try to seek refuge in drugs and other substances of abuse and end up becoming addicts. Marking their entry into the dark world of substance abuse they begin with “experimentation” either under peer pressure or out of curiosity and eagerness to experience the temporary ‘excitement’. Then they switch over to “regular use” to continue with the artificial euphoria that lands them into “risky use or abuse” and finally they become physically and psychologically subservient to drug abuse and turn into full time “addicts or dependents”. Therefore, protecting adolescents from adversity at the right stage, promoting socio-emotional learning and psychological well-being, and ensuring access to mental health care are critical for their health and well-being during adolescence and adulthood. This underlines the need to have psychological counsellors at all educational institutions including schools, colleges and universities who can patiently listen to the youngsters, try to understand their mental health needs, offer them coping strategies for overcoming stress and other deviations from normal behaviour through professional psychological counselling.
High school level marks the beginning of adolescence, a tumultuous and transformative phase in the lives of children. This is the time when they begin to have their own likes, dislikes, outlooks and perceptions about issues, people, ideologies and surroundings, develop their own perspectives and desire to take their own decisions. At this stage it becomes important to channelise their curiosity, enthusiasm and energy towards the right direction through proper guidance and mentoring, in absence of which they may seek refuge in drugs, substances of abuse, bad company, illegal activities and sometimes even fall prey to anti-social elements without realizing its ill effects on their career and future life. Furthermore, the parental pressure to perform well in the examinations, score a high percentage of marks, steer through cut-throat competitions and secure admissions in a reputed college or university are the prime concerns that they usually face. To make things worse, traditions of unfair comparisons and unhealthy competitions in the society besides undue expectations of parents put additional burdens on their feeble shoulders. Parents often fail to appreciate the unique personalities and hidden talents of their children and often force them to be a part of the rat race for medical and engineering admissions. All this often leads to immense pressure, frustration, anxiety and depression among the children. Under such circumstances a caring and empathetic psychological counsellor back at school can serve as a pro-social adult for such students who feel frustrated, helpless and rebellious and can adjust their behaviours, help them identify troubling emotions and thoughts besides teaching them develop coping mechanisms and counter strategies for the same using psychotherapy or talk therapy. Through psychotherapy they can help such students break the vicious cycle of repetitive negative beliefs and thoughts that are followed by perpetual negative feelings and emotions (obsession) and are then ensued by negative behaviour and actions (compulsion). They can help and train them when and how to divert their attention from negative to positive thoughts and feelings. Psychological counsellors can also counsel the parents of such children, rationalize, balance and align their behaviour and expectations in the right direction, thus helping the students get relieved from their unbearable burdens of unrealistic expectations.
At college level, students feel quite exuberant with enthusiasm and energy. This is an enthralling and exhilarating phase that marks a new turn in the life of a student towards his future. Experience of the new place, new people, new classmates, new environment and a new life can sometimes be difficult for a few to handle particularly those with a shy and introvert kind of personality. New ambience could throw new challenges of social behaviour, networking, intermingling and forming new friendships and relations besides issues related to self-esteem for some students that in turn could cause stress, social anxiety, depression, abnormal behaviour and unusual thoughts. Therefore, a psychological counsellor could be a very helpful source of support for such students where they can get counselling regarding their career, courses, relationships, adapting to the new atmosphere and in tackling personal emotional and mental health issues. Such kind of psychological counselling could boost their morale and improve their performance in their chosen stream and help them overcome their inhibitions, constraints and limitations in their participation in extra-curricular activities like sports, music, fine arts, winter and summer camps, hiking, mountaineering, nature exploration etc. They can be counselled about social anxiety issues, substance abuse and day-to-day stress. Appropriate professional help could help them receive suitable medical and non-medical interventions wherever needed and thereby excel in their career without falling prey to anti-social and immoral activities. This way they will be well-equipped to handle such challenges and be mentally strong to face them upfront.
Parents and other family members of the victims in particular have a very significant role to play in identifying potential abusers, developing a supportive and caring environment within the family, counseling and educating the abusers about the ill-effects of drug abuse, helping the abusers to return back to their normal life and get rid of the substances of abuse, while at the same time rehabilitating them and boosting their morale and confidence to start afresh as a normal human being capable of standing on their own feet and living an independent life. Parents need to be cautious about the pocket money given to and spent by their wards because abundant pocket money and easy availability of drugs in their vicinity could make their children potential candidates for drug abuse. Bad company and emotional insecurity or instability could only make the things worse for them. They need to be alert about the changing habits, attitudes, behaviours and routines of their children and occasionally snoop into their rooms to make sure there is nothing like razors, aluminium foils, insulin syringes, cigarettes lying around in their cupboards and bags. Teachers too need to be vigilant about any sudden or gradual changes in the performance, responsiveness, attitudes and behaviours of their students they can report the same to their seniors, parents or counsellors and arrange a counselling session for them. Teachers need to keep the students engaged in creative and recreational activities like sports, cultural and community-based group activities so that their energies and curiosities get channelized in the right direction. Moral and value-based education needs to be made an inevitable component of the curriculum so that the students do not go haywire.
Adolescents who are suffering from any kind of personality or psychiatric disorders are particularly vulnerable to social exclusion, discrimination, stigma that in turn affects their readiness to seek help and exposes them further towards risk-taking behaviour, physical and mental illnesses. Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide among 15- to 19-year-old children. Therefore, the consequences of failing to address adolescent mental health conditions can extend to adulthood, impairing both physical and mental health and limiting their opportunities to lead fulfilling lives as adults. Physical, emotional and social changes, including exposure to poverty, abuse, or violence, can make adolescents vulnerable to mental health problems. Psychological counsellors at primary school level can identify and help children suffering from disorders like schizophrenia, anxiety and panic disorders, phobias, mood disorders like bipolar disorder, eating disorder, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, personality disorders or learning disabilities. Since parents are not medically trained to notice the symptoms and diagnose these disorders, barring a few of them who are doctors by profession, they often fail to identify these disorders and get timely medical intervention for the same, often leading to increasing severity and progressive complications with advancing age. Availability of a psychological counsellor at school can ensure constant observation of kids through their class teachers leading to timely diagnosis and early treatment of psychological and personality disorders besides better outcomes of education. Therefore, all educational institutions must engage psychological counsellors to support students in managing their mental health and staying away from drugs and other substances of abuse.
Quite often it has been observed that inability or failure to make a right career choice at an appropriate stage in life and landing into a career that is contrary to one’s liking leads to utter frustration among the budding youth and generates negatives thoughts, emotions and behaviours making them vulnerable to substance abuse and mental disorders. Therefore, making suitable professional career counselling facilities available at schools and colleges for the timely guidance of students can be of immense help in saving them from the quagmire of frustration, chaos and confusion in life. As such, apart from a psychological counsellor, all our educational institutions need to establish career counselling cells wherein services of professionally qualified and well-trained career counsellors can be made available for fulfilling the counselling needs of our students through psychometric testing and personality profiling. Establishment of career-cum-psychological counselling cells in all educational institutions could mark a good beginning towards immunising our society from the dreadful disease of drug abuse (To be continued).
(Based on the excerpts from a talk delivered by the author on June 26: International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking at National Institute of Technology (NIT), Srinagar, organized by CAUSE and DSW, NIT, Srinagar. Author teaches at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Kashmir and holds the additional charge of Director, Centre for Career Planning and Counselling of the University)
No comments:
Post a Comment