#DrAratiSuryawanshi : Rather than ‘I’ and ‘Me’ it completely changes the picture upside down when it comes with ‘We’ and ‘All’

The Corona virus pandemic attack changed lives drastically world over. Back home too the virus destructed many lives individually as well as professionally. As most of the people were locked in during the lockdowns, there was a nervous energy affecting people’s lives. The importance of sound mental health came to fore as there was negativity all around. Dr. #AratiSuryawanshi works in the mental health sector and she interacted with our correspondent Mr. #KeertiKadam. Excerpts….

Why did you choose to become a Mental Health Worker?

This is a very nice and important question; when I was in the first year of my BA, I had not decided to pursue the entire Psychology course for my under-graduation. But then on coincidence, a friend of mine came to see me at my residence and shared that she had gone to visit a psychiatrist as she was feeling completely hopeless. However, due to some in-ordain formality requirement like paying fees in advance and requirement of submission of papers, her appointment was cancelled. I was in my first year BA and had not even started learning much about psychology processes but this piqued my interest and motivated me to learn more about the field, and I started looking for a course which was both technical and practical based which allowed a person to use their knowledge for the society and self. I completed my BA and MA in Clinical Psychology.

I still remember my first client, nearly 30 years ago, asked me when I had started selling gowns. I understood that she had misread the artistic writing on the board, ‘Counselling’ as Gownselling. Somehow managing my emotions, I asked her to sit, offered a cup of tea and shared with her what counselling is and what it does with our life. Today we, the Mindful Heart Consultancy have an office in Mumbai and are working enormously to support people during the Covid-19 pandemic. Through our initiative “MHC – Covid 19 – Action”, my team and I have therapeutically supported more than 5500 people individually and in groupthrough the use of technology like zoom meetings and google meets, coaching frontline worriers such as doctors, nurses, ward-boys, police and homemakers whom we call “Covid Warrior Home Front”. We also support these individuals with various different handy tools that they can implement to get through stressful situations. My team and I are trying to further shed light on the important issues of mental health and their impact on the most vulnerable people through our YouTube channel, training and workshops, therapy sessions, talks, interviews, write ups and blogs.

How did you handle a difficult situation?

With nearly 30 years in this field, I’ve come across many obstacles and challenges like facing barrier of growth on my own career. From having a husband with a transferable job to raising two wonderful children to taking care of a big family with multiple elder member, I have always been able to balance my personal life with my profession primarily due to my key strengths of resilience, empathy, optimistic perspective and intrinsic motivation.

I have learned various creative ways to handle difficult situations by starting to focus on my own skill of emotional intelligence. This in-turn led me to pursue and attain my PhD and complete my certifications in Emotional Intelligence. Having built my foundation through my personal experience, I took up initiatives to transform myself through learning EQ skills as Navigating Emotions, Empathy for Self, and becoming more and more visionary. This process led me to finding answers to my own issues and work on them scientifically. My journey has remarkably helped me reduce worrying and becoming anxious and today rather using them as my strengths. Having gone through this myself it really has become a powerful tool when I add this in my training programs and workshops as it brings alive this change for my clients during my sessions who often land up sharing amazing feedbacks.

How Does a Typical Day of Mental Health Workers Look Like?

It’s again a very diligent question to answer. Mental Health Worker can either be doing a job with fixed timings or having their own freelancing firm. I have always preferred to have my own firm in order to achieve a freedom on my work and simultaneously learned to updatewith my knowledge in the field. At my firm, we work through individual appointments andalso conduct our sessions in groups either by going to the establishments or by conducting with our team at our office in Fort. It’s never a 2+2 = 4 when it comes to our clients. It can be many people and might include numerous sessions, which is a key aspect of our practise. It can be a thankless job as in this country as mental health still faces a lot of stigma and is heavily inaccessible to most people. It is often looked at as a luxury for the elite when in reality we have to do our work to make it accessible to every facet of society; everybody deserves mental health people are still at some point not ready to speak about it when it comes to the society. This requires a lot of knowledge and updated information since it is a constantly growing field and touches across all spheres of life. Most of the times we have a very engaging day and sometimes it’s not. At the same time since this is a very creative field, one receives a job satisfaction if one believes in the success which comes with a smile on the client’s face.

How Significant is Teamwork for You?

When we divide our work among members of the team, it helps us get the work done faster making the overall operation to work more efficiently. Your team will develop a sense of comraderie as you work toward a common goal, together. You’ll feel that your work is valued when you contribute to do something that produces results. And I strongly believe that Teamwork builds morale.

Teamwork is extremely important in any field. We have always believed in team work at Mindful Heart Consultancy. When any heavy amount of work is done together the joy is spread too. Rather than ‘I’ and ‘Me’ it completely changes the picture upside down when it comes with ‘We’ and ‘All’. We also have an internship program wherein our interns learn as well as contribute in different projects at the same time. I am very glad to mention that many interns have successfully started their own offices in Mumbai, Thane and Nashik.

In your opinion, what are the most common mental and emotional problems children face nowadays?

Nowadays in the time of Covid-19 pandemic, schools are working online too. Children are missing the safety that educational institutions can provide. Children in rural and more vulnerable communities often rely on schools as a means for safety, enriching social interactions and basic neccessities. So children are facing immense stresses; of potentially having to take the brunt of the income in charges for their household and even potentially being in abusive homes.

Even in urban locales, being away from their school can be stressful and make children feel lonely, since they are missing the physical interaction they usually have with their friends and teachers. Many parents are sharing that children are becoming more and more passive more and more day by day due to the pandemic. Many students too are sharing that they are not as happy as they were before. The first wave of the pandemic was spent enjoying a lot with video games and other online games but as time went by and children still felt stuck at homes, are now mentioning they are feeling uneasy and at distress.

Some have also shared that they have been happy since they are with their family and getting enough time to discuss various things with their parents which otherwise would not have been possible with both parents needing to go out for work.

Few initiatives that can be taken by parents, Invest time in learning new things, exercising and preparing for future. Preparing children as change makers. Creating interests in the fields where children will be safe or making them read and learn about it which can reduce the fear and they can take charge and warn people in the house to take care in the pandemic. Build their personalities which might have been difficult when schools were normally on. Develop interests in various hobbies and pursue them which becomes just impossible during regular school hours.