SHUBHANGI SHIFA
Ranchi, May 17: The Central Institute of Psychiatry (CIP) on Tuesday celebrated its 105th foundation day with fervour after two years of the pandemic.
Speakers on the occasion were two alumni from Dehradun, Uttarakhand and one from CIP itself. While the alumni spoke on issues like ‘The practice of psychiatry in Indian context: Trends & challenges in the post COVID world’, ‘From grieving to healing: Moving beyond the loss’ and ‘Societal Resilience: Understanding its role during & after COVID -19’; the audience also discussed the issues in detail later.
The programme began with the inaugural wherein officials addressed the audience along with speeches from Chief Guest on the occasion Dr Kameshwar Prasad, Director RIMS and Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax in Bihar and Jharkhand, Rakesh Mishra, who was present as Guest of Honour.
Talking on the occasion, Prof Dr Basudeb Das said, “After the formal event, we will felicitate our alumni from 10 and 25 years back, that joined our university to encourage exposure and experience sharing among themselves. They also get to share their experiences in the institute as students and compare the times when they were here.”
“Furthermore, we will also arrange an annual general body meeting of the alumni, which happens every year to decide on the office bearers of the president, secretary, etc. We will also discuss activities in the past and make plans for the future.”
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Shobhit Garg talked of ‘Shadow Pandemics’ seen during the pandemic and said, “Several shadow pandemics including violence against women, stress and anxiety, and depression and other health issues in children that are normally seen in adults.”
He further talked of the effects of the pandemic in psychiatry and said that in a conversation between a psychiatrist and their patient, the doctor is involved in verbal and non-verbal cues, however now that patients have masks, all that a doctor sees in the eyes of the patient. Dr Garg said that this may create a bias and compromise the emotions of the patients, subsequently leading to a biased estimation of the patient’s problem.
Dr Garg further talked of options used to break the bad news to family members of patients during the pandemic and the protocols available. “We also did interviews with patients and researched the timings of partial or full use of masks. We found that Covid increased psychiatric morbidity in patients. Furthermore, we pondered on the topic of whether stress increases chances of a viral infection under Conserved Transcriptional Response to Adversity (CTRA).”
He further said that if not careful, doctors may diagnose a patient with OCD instead of Covid Stress Syndrome among patients with fear compulsive disorders. He also talked of long Covid and its classification as per WHO and NICC.
Dr Garg then talked of online counselling and other options present for patients including Telemedicine, e-Therapy, and TeleHealth Care and said that even the Central government acknowledges its importance and has thus increased the Mental Budget to 0.8 percent from 0.04 percent.
Furthermore, Dr Preeti Mishra talked of grief and compared it to mourning and bereavement. “Bereavement is the period that we grieve or mourn the loss of a dear one. On the other hand, mourning is the
She further discussed issues like types of grief, stages of a grief reaction, criticism of stages of grief reactions, four tasks of mourning, and the difference between grief counselling and grief therapy among others.
Explaining the types of grief she explained uncomplicated and subsequent complicated grief, anticipatory grief, disenfranchised grief, and acute grief that may then shift to integrated grief.
She explained, “Everyone faces the uncomplicated grief when they lose someone, however, when the grief and hurt mimic major depression disorder and takes over most of the daily life, it changes to complicated grief.”
“Anticipatory grief is when people have time to deal with the grief and prepare themselves for the upcoming death of a loved one, while disenfranchised grief is when the person is left alone to deal with the grief. Acute grief is faced immediately after the loss while integrated grief is when one learns to move on despite the pain and hurt and learns to live with it without getting destructive,” Dr Mishra added.
She also gave an example of a patient’s history discussing her stages of grief while explaining the different stages.
