On March 24, 2020 the Government of India nationwide lockdown, thus limiting the movement of entire 1.3 billion population of India as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 pandemic situation. The novel coronavirus has caused severe threats to the physical and psychological well being of individuals. Although self-isolation, which is an outgrowth of lockdown, helped in achieving the goal of reducing the infection but at the same time it limited the access to family, friends and other social support systems thus leading to loneliness and seclusion, which eventually influences the mental health negatively.
With the objective to acknowledge the need to talk and discuss about the mental health during pandemic, the Department of Economics and Psychology organised a webinar on ‘Living the Times of Pandemic: Psychological Impact of Lockdown and Self Isolation’ on 19th September 2020. Google Meet was chosen as a platform for conducting the live webinar.
The Programme Coordinators for the event were Ms. Poorvi Medatwal and Ms. Nupur Chauhan. The Resource Person for this webinar was Ms. Mimansa Singh Tanwar, Lead Clinical Psychologist and Programme Head- Clinical Psychology and Mental Health, Fortis Healthcare, Gurugram. The event started with the introduction of the topic and formal welcome of the resource person. Ms. Mimansa then addressed the students and teachers and asserted about the importance of recognizing the issues related to mental health as much as it is important for physical health.
The need to unmute oneself and start talking about matters related to mental health was also one of the key topic that was discussed in the webinar as it will not only help breaking down the stigma attached to mental health problems but also facilitate the individuals to talk and share about their thoughts and emotions without any kind of embarrassment. She also shared her views on how one can engage himself in constructive activities that may help combatting the negative thoughts during the lockdown period and hence improving the quality of life.
A brief question and answer session was also planned and held during this webinar so that the students can ask all their queries and can get an expert’s opinion on it. Students actively participated in this session, expressed their experiences during lockdown, enquired about the guidelines to identify negative thought patterns and strategies to cope with the ongoing stress. Overall 125 participants joined this webinar and thus added one more feather of achievement to the department.
Comments
Post a Comment