BENGALURU: As the second wave of Covid- 19 infections rages across India, it appears that the battle lines are drawn: You’re fighting Covid-19 directly or indirectly, or you’re fighting its impact on your mind, or you’re fighting both battles at the same time. Overwhelmed by the situation, more people are seeking out therapy or counselling to cope, mental health professionals say. Citta, a non-profit organisation that provides mental heal th care, had launched a free of cost 30-minute emotional support helpline (+91 9981857665 / +91 7208107955) on April 22.
Initially, it catered to only Covidpositive individuals and caregivers but since May 13, the pan-India initiative expanded its outreach to everyone. According to Neelika Chakrabarti, people have been calling from over 22 cities. “The common problems that our callers have shared are feelings of anxiety, loneliness, isolation, uncertainty and fear of contracting Covid or losing a loved one,” says Chakrabarti, who co-founded Citta with Sagar Menon. “While we do have callers in their 30s and 40s, predominantly, we’ve been getting calls from those who are aged between 16 and 27 years,” adds Menon.
This feeling of despair and helplessness among the younger generation is something even Sudeeptha Grama, psychotherapist and founder of The Coffeeshop Counsellor, has noticed. She recently conducted a free group listening session, where the first hour was spent in expressing feelings, and the second, in learning how to cope better. “The session, where my colleague Akhila Phadnis and I were the facilitators, didn’t just have people from Bengaluru but also those living abroad while their family is here.
Overall, there’s a feeling of guilt. Those outside India are feeling guilty about how other countries are moving on and life is regaining normalcy. And among those here, there’s guilt about being okay when so many others are suffering,” says Grama, adding that a sense of numbness and meaninglessness has also crept in.
Mental health professionals are not immune to such feelings, and are themselves feeling overwhelmed and burned out. Gulmohar, a city-based mental health organisation, recently conducted two discussion groups with 24 practitioners.
Based on the experiences shared by them - primarily of helplessness and fatigue - they are now starting a support group for mental health practitioners.
“Right now, so many organisations are providing support on a sliding scale or pro-bono basis. So we felt it would be apt to aid practitioners as much as possible now,” says Manish Shekhar Das Gupta, a counselling psychologist and co-founder of Gulmohar.
Slated to begin next week, the fortnightly sessions will be 90 minutes each, with 6-8 participants and two psychologists as facilitators.
The first couple of sessions will be focused on building rapport and setting the agenda, after which, individual concerns will be explored. “We hope this will help those in the field because sometimes, you don’t know what to tell a client and are at a loss of words. There’s no handbook for handling a pandemic,” says Gupta.