Quacks and mental health

Many are unaware that mental healthcare exists due to lack of exposure and education

Pakistan has been late in catching up with the concept of mental health. To this day, many in the nation are unaware that mental healthcare exists due to lack of exposure and education. Their approaches to identifiable mental illnesses and conditions ranging from total neglect and ignorance to superstition and folk beliefs. And yet, estimates suggest that as many as 50 million Pakistanis may be suffering from mental disorders.

Among educated, urban Pakistanis, not only is there a better awareness of mental health, there is also an increasing demand for mental healthcare. Access to the Internet has allowed people to read up on all manners of disorders and conditions, and while this has spurred on curiosity, it has created a false sense of expertise. Not all information and practices are created equal, and a lot of pseudoscience is confused with legitimate clinical practices. Ideally, this is where the government has to step up. This is where a formal body composed of actual experts decides who gets a licence to set up shop, as with any other medical practice.

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The murder of Noor Mukadam has inadvertently also shed a light on the murky side of the ‘therapy business’. That her murderer, who some accounts suggest had a history of concerning behaviour, was supposedly moonlighting as a ‘therapist’ has created a healthy and much-needed discussion on legitimate mental healthcare and questionable practices that masquerade as such.

From dubious licences to pseudoscientific ‘mind sciences’, the space for mental health services has been polluted by quacks in Pakistan. It is easy to understand why. As things stand, the country is estimated to have only one licensed mental healthcare provider for every 400,000 citizens.

Going forward, the government and our higher education sector has a two-fold challenge. The first, of course, is to expedite the creation of licensing body for the mental healthcare sector. This is easier to do. The second, which would require a generational effort, is to produce a larger cohort of proper psychiatrists and clinical psychologists to narrow the space for snake-oil salesmen.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 3^rd, 2021.

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