Mental fitness

The establishment of the first Mental Health Institute and Treatment Centre of Pakistan is a laudable step towards alleviating psychological issues experienced by the population. The numbers reported underscore a crucial requirement to provide more options for people with mental ailments; it has been elucidated that approximately 80 million people suffer from physiological and mental disorders. This represents an unusually high percentage of Pakistanis. We welcome the new mental health institute set to open in Abbottabad despite its remote location and concerns about accessibility, because it expands the scope of treatment options for patients.

Primarily, there is a need to first create more awareness and facilitate diagnosis of mental health disorders. While the Mental Health Institute will provide a specific type of treatment called life transformation transcendental channelling process therapy, it is important for psychiatric treatment centres to emphasise a holistic approach to mental well-being and seek treatment therapies that are best suited to specific patients without heavy dependency on drugs. It is a highly valid but often ignored point that mental diseases and disorders have physiological bases in the brain that manifest in specific types of behaviour and psychological issues. Once people begin viewing mental health as a medical ailment that should be addressed and treated in a timely manner, the stigma attached to it will automatically be reduced. The initiative is also welcome given that factors such as poverty, access to decent education and healthcare are virtually unchangeable owing to the preoccupation of the government over other matters and its avoidance in handling the most basic of issues that could automatically assuage causes for many people’s stress, anxiety and depression. Such measures should be taken in other provinces as the mental fitness of a population plays a significant role in its happiness and productivity.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24^th, 2017.

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