The Hindu : Karnataka News : The meeting that changed the mindset

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Oct 11, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

The meeting that changed the mindset

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, OCT. 10. Speeches were not made and advice was not given. On the occasion of World Mental Health Day on Sunday, a voluntary organisation and a group of families in a small village on the outskirts of Bangalore gave meaning to the word "thoughtfulness".

The Family Fellow Society for Psychosocial Rehabilitation organised a get-together on the occasion at Lakshmisagar village in Anekal taluk, where they invited the families living there to interact with mentally-ill persons. The society is an initiative of the families of mentally-ill persons and provides residential and rehabilitation services to chronically ill people.

The participants, who numbered around 21 families, were given information on causative factors of mental illness, treatment and management modalities, and rehabilitation process of mentally-ill persons by M. Ranganathan, president of the society and Additional Professor of Psychiatric Social Work at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS). But the most important part of the programme was the interactive session between the families and the mentally-ill persons who are undergoing rehabilitation at the society's centre.

"The interaction helped the families come out of the stigma that they attached with people with mental disabilities and it helped them undergo attitudinal changes. Many of them even expressed their willingness to help the mentally-ill persons and spend time with them," Dr. Ranganathan said.

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