Psychology
Psychological counsellors are instructed in the skill of listening and have skills to help you explore your concerns, to help you make sense of complex issues, and to find a way forward. All counselling work is, of course, entirely confidential.
They are the principal caregivers in the area of mental health. At Spandan, these medical professionals treat mental illnesses through various means, including therapy and medication. Some psychiatrists specialize in a specific form of treatment, such as psychotherapy or psychoanalysis. They help their patients find resolutions through leading individual or group therapy sessions, analyzing changes in behaviour and examining past experiences.
Spandan runs under the auspices of Barvalia foundation that functions on the sound Holistic multidisciplinary framework. We have a team of professionals catering their services to adults and children with developmental, academic, emotional, and behavioural difficulties.
We meet our goals of integrative care & holistic management by working in coordination with a team of homeopathic physicians & other panels of experts like pediatricians, neurologists, special educators & occupational therapists.
Ever since the inception of the foundation, the department of psychology is instrumental in delivering quality services by using advanced standardized psychometric tools for screening and evaluation. It has been an important aid in case conceptualization, diagnosis, and management. Around a year nearly one thousand patients benefit from assessment and counselling provided.
We work in liaison with the Spandan special school of children by engaging in the time to time assessment of children for treatment evaluation & behaviour modification. Workshops of parents & teachers are conducted on a regular basis.
Over the years, the department has expanded its services from psychological evaluation to counselling and play/ art-based therapy. Research-based intervention programs and other research outreach activities are carried out under the various public health initiative programs. Our dedicated team of clinical psychologists plays an active role in research formulation, data collection, and analysis.
Current activities:
Clinical: Children with various neurodevelopmental and motor disorders are referred by the physicians for the psychological assessment.
Some of the disorders commonly seen are learning disability, mental retardation, Pervasive developmental disorder (Autism, Aspergers, and childhood disintegrative disorder), motor coordination disorder (cerebral palsy), behaviour disorders like Attention deficit disorder, conduct and oppositional defiant disorder.
Adult evaluation is done for psychopathological traits and emotional functioning. Besides this, we also give counselling services to individuals with relationship issues and adjustment difficulties.
Research:
Over the years the centre has conducted scientific research studies that established the effective role of homoepathic intervention in treating childhood disorders like autism, hyperactivity, and dyslexia.
Two ongoing research projects are
- Mood disorder in children
- Psychosomatic dimensions in thyroid disorder
Mood disorder in children
We carried out screening camps in schools from two localities (Deonar & Ramabai) of Mumbai city. During this camp in the school of Ramabai locality, 581 Children were screened using the childhood depression Inventory. Self-ratings of 163 children were found to fall in average to above-average symptoms range for depression. Detail evaluation and psychological assessment of 53 children were carried using standardized psychometric tests. Case conceptualization was done based on the reported clinical symptomatology, psychological evaluation, and homeopathic life space analysis. Overall 9% of the children reported depressive features and results show that 3.7 % of the children had clinical depressive symptoms. 60% of the children were found to have perceptual dysfunction as seen on semi projective tasks. It was found that in slum areas, children suffered from a strong feeling of worthlessness, negative self-image. Parental and interpersonal conflicts were prominently reported. Children are undergoing homeopathy treatment and psychotherapeutic intervention in the form of a group activity session conducted at spandan’s community health clinic in Ramabai Nagar.
Psychosomatic dimensions in thyroid disorder
With an increasing level of stress and growing demand to cope up with fast pace life conditions, we have found people suffering from autoimmune system dysfunction. Increasing thyroid cases in OPD of the clinic motivated us to study psychological factors and stressors due to life events.
The cause for the development of the thyroid diseases has been noted to be various stressors which have their impact on the functioning of the gland causing an imbalance of the hormones. Hence, the psychosomatic correlation becomes crucial in understanding these altered phenomena which may act as either an exciting cause or maintaining or even precipitating cause in the different patients. Thus, the main objective of the research is to study the personality traits, level of adjustment, and identification of personal stressors in patients with thyroid disorders. Standardized psychometric tools were used in the study.
Counselling:
The department of psychology of Spandan holistic institute of applied homeopathy is also actively involved in providing counselling & therapeutic interventions. The nature of the therapy varies from art/ play therapy & behavioral therapy with the children to active cognitive/ behavioral & insight-oriented problem-solving therapies for adults with relationship/adjustment issues.
Future Vision:
Advanced psychometric tools like Woodcock-Johnson neuro-psychological battery will be introduced for determining the level of neurocognitive and perceptual deficits in the children and adults regardless of their cultural & linguistic limitations. We look forward to this as an aid to precise comprehensive clinical diagnosis of learning disability assessment, especially for vernacular medium students. Besides this, it would help us widen the spectrum & open up new horizons in the field of learning disability intervention.
Consultant Psychiatrist:
Dr. Ghazali Shaikh
M.B.B.S. D.P.M
Availability: By appointment Monday, Wednesday, Friday(7.30pm to 8.30 pm)