By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 3 Sep: A workshop for young psychologists was successfully organised by the Department of Psychology at Doon University, in which undergraduate, postgraduate, and PhD researchers as well as teachers participated. The theme of this workshop was, “Feel, Deal and Heal,” and the focus was on the new psychological problems of adolescence.
Doon University Vice Chancellor Professor Surekha Dangwal, in her message to the students for the workshop, said that adolescence is a time of life in which teenagers go through psychological, physical, and emotional changes. At this stage, parents need to be very sensitive towards their children as well as become their support system. In modern times, due to busy schedules and other reasons, many parents are neither able to spend proper time nor maintain communication with their children. With the changing times, parents need to understand the needs of their children as per the new changing times. Otherwise, the result may be that the children start looking for support systems outside the family to fill that gap. Many children, in search of a support system, start contacting unknown people in the virtual world of the Internet, and often, in such cases, children can become victims of exploitation, she asserted.
Counselling psychologist and the main resource person, Dr Aman Kapoor said, “If you want to heal your life, then first you have to feel the emotions and then deal with them. As many as 70% of mental problems start in childhood and adolescence. Research shows that 13 percent of people aged 10 to 19 are diagnosed with a mental disorder. It is very important to know what we think after a negative event because our thinking determines how we will feel. Phone/screen/drug addiction has emerged as a serious problem among today’s youth.”
The dark web is a new threat for teenagers; parents are unaware of it, and many times teenagers start watching incidents like live crime or sex on it. Those teenagers who remain cut off from their family or parents go this way more often, Dr Kapoor revealed, adding that, if the mental health of the parents is not good in the family, or if there is any kind of violence or communication gap between them, it certainly has a negative impact on the children.
Dr Savita Tiwari Karnataka, Head of the Department of Psychology, said that counselling is very important because it changes one’s perspective. Even listening carefully to someone starts the healing process. It is important for the counsellor to treat the client with non-judgmental, unconditional positive regard and empathy.
Senior psychologist and Assistant Professor Dr Rajesh Bhatt said the future of psychologists is bright and that job opportunities in this field are continuously increasing. Awareness has increased among the general public that counselling given by psychologists is necessary to deal with psychological problems. If psychological counselling is taken at the right time, serious psychological problems can be avoided.
The event was moderated by Siddhant Kataria and Vinayak Singh. Dr Swati Singh, Dr Kalpana Singh, Richa Negi, Anamika Bhardwaj, Deepak Kumar, Ayushi, Anjali Suyal, Mohammad Arif, Vipul and others participated.
