SHUBHANGI SHIFA
Ranchi, June 30: A two-day workshop was inaugurated by the Department of Psychiatric Social Work on ‘National Workshop on Family Therapy: Assessment and Intervention’ at RINPAS on Thursday. The workshop aims to provide detailed information regarding the importance of family, problems associated with it, and its importance in therapy along with preventing and promoting mental health.
While talking about the importance of family in therapy, Dr Manisha Kiran, HOD Psychiatric Social Work (PSW) Department said, “Family is the basic foundation and unit of society. Its contribution to either mental illness or its recovery is of utmost importance. We at the PSW department work with families. We study the pathology of families, study and the roles of different units of the family, and their communication.”
She further added, “We assess the problems that arise with different pathologies of people in a family. They can have issues in communication, and roles and end up becoming dysfunctional. We try to assess the problems and to fulfil the psychological and emotional needs of a family.”
“After assessing the issues, we try to rectify them through our modules, either family intervention or other modules. We also work to help the patient recover, make sure that the illness doesn’t relapse and that the restored mental health is maintained. We then work to make the family get over the issues, sometimes even have family marital or kids therapy as per the needs of the patient, Dr Kiran said.
Ranchi University Pro VC Dr Kamini Kumar enlightened the crowd on the importance of family in the current socio-cultural scenario.
Dr Basudeo Das, Director of CIP addressed the crowd and outlined the growing denigration of familial structure and the need to address this issue at the earliest. Dr Jayati Simlai, Director Rinpass stressed the need for early family interventions which could directly affect the level of mental health problems in the community.
Dr Sobhana gave a basic overview of the workshop. Subsequently, Dr Manisha Kiran gave a vote of thanks following which the inaugural program ended.
During the workshop, speakers Dr Sobhana, Dr Ranjeet, and Dr Bino are to discuss topics like Family life cycle stages, Intake of patients and assessment, theoretical approaches, skills and techniques of family therapy, indications and contraindications, role play etc. The speakers are from Nimhans, Tezpur LGBRIMH and PGI Chandigarh. As per organizers, the workshop is expected to be interactive with different sessions throughout.
The inaugural was graced by Dr Sobhana H, Dr Renjith R Pillai, Dr Bino Thomas, Dr Subhas Soren, Dr Sanjay Munda, Dr Nishant Goyal and other officers and students from RINPAS and CIP.
