We can change our life
Hello and warm greetings. I am Dr S K Sharma, practicing in the field of psychology in New Delhi, India since 1994. Before we proceed, I would like to share about my growth in this field. I completed my basic medical education from Delhi University. While I was undergoing training, I was moved by seeing people’s suffering both physical and psychological. As I studied more and more about psychiatric diseases and psychological problems, I was fascinated about the working of human mind and its enormous abilities. This led to my journey of exploration of psychological problems and sickness. After long years of studies, training and research, I am finally able to reach a state where I am able to help people with psychological problems in less time and more effectiveness.
Mental Health Assessment
Any health practitioner who is desirous of helping a person in difficulty or treating a sickness can not deny the fact that most important task is to assess or diagnose the condition. And this diagnosis must be characterized by following:
- Complete but quick
The assessment must be complete. It must take into account all factors which could have led to present status as well as complete assessment of person’s psychological status. At the same time it should not be hasty but reasonably quick so that the main purpose of assessment should not get lost in the long process.
- Correct
Everyone will agree that assessment must be correct and no mental health professional would like to make an incorrect assessment. But this occurs due to many factors like haste in assessment, preconceived ideas about condition, lack of knowledge, lack of effort, even lack of desire to go deep into complexities of condition. Needless to say that incorrect assessment can only lead to incorrect treatment or management.
- Not just to give name of sickness
It should not be the approach on part of mental health professional to somehow fix a name to the condition. There are cases where one may not be able to reach any conclusion. It would be much better on part of the mental health professional to seek second opinion.
- Meaningful for suitable effective remedial action
Mental health assessment is not meant to fill pages for records. It should be meaningful assessment which could prove useful towards correct management and treatment of the condition.
How I found many cases on wrong medication
Over these years I have come across a large number of cases where people were on wrong medication due to incorrect assessment. Strange but true some of them required no medicine at all. There were people who got better in no time only by change in certain behavior patters or coping skills. But for years they were on medications because they were labeled as patients of depression or anxiety. And unfortunately, there is other extreme as well. Many cases which are actual psychiatric diseases are too not correctly assessed. This leads to either wrong medication or even no medication.
Complaints
Psychological Complaints people suffer from can be divided into following types:
- Difficulties or disorder in perception like delusions, illusions or hallucinations.
- Difficulties or disorder in cognitive functions like thinking pattern, concentration, memory, calculation, reading, writing, learning etc
- Difficulties or disorder in emotions like mood disorders, anger, sadness, fear, grief etc.
- Difficulties or disorder in behavior including behavior towards self and behavior towards others.
Solutions
Management or treatment of psychological complaints requires a comprehensive approach. I use following techniques depending on their suitability and applicability in a certain case.
- Counseling
- Psychotherapy
- Homeopathic Psychiatry
- Hypnotherapy
- Lifestyle management
- Life Management
My focus of management is :
- Immediate relief.
- Long term sustained benefit
- Prevention of relapse
- Better abilities to defeat further problems
