Dr SHRIRANG BAKHLE sheds light on the kinds of treatment one must seek if one is suffering from any kind of mental problem.
~ A woman takes her husband to the doctor. It becomes clear that he is suffering from office stress resulting in sleeplessness, hypertension and other stress-related problems. The doctor prescribes some medicines to reduce the anxiety and to help him get sleep. The man becomes furious, “Do you think I am mad? Do you think I am suffering from some mental disorder?”
~ A woman goes to the doctor saying that she keeps worrying about her daughter who is studying away in another town. She asks the doctor to give her some pills to overcome her sadness and anxiety. Instead, the doctor counsels her and advises some techniques for overcoming the problems.
~ A student has developed exam-related anxiety. But his parents have noticed that his performance in the last couple of exams has gone down drastically because of his anxiety.
~ Family members take a man to the doctor saying that nowadays he is drinking too much. The man insists it is perfectly normal and he is fully under control and that he can give it up anytime he decides.
Are these people suffering from some mental disorders? Aren’t they suffering from ‘normal’ life’s stresses? Do they need treatments?
In the case of mental distress, there are no sharp boundaries between who can be considered to be ‘normal’ and people who are suffering from mental disorders. There are no sharp criteria to decide who needs treatment and who doesn’t. There is a full spectrum of people with more or less suffering. Then how do we decide who needs ‘treatment’ and who doesn’t?
But before we go to that, we need to understand what is meant by ‘treatment’. Commonly, when people think of treatment of mental distress or disorders, they think of ‘strong medicines’ that ‘knock you out and put you to sleep’! Well, not really.
In fact, there is a whole range of ‘treatments’ for tackling mental distress. The simplest ‘treatment’ is controlling the mental distress oneself. All of us have innate abilities to control our minds. So, most of the people, most of the times are able to control their own mental distress or suffering. But sometimes, they are not able to control. That is the time to seek further ‘treatment’.
The next simple ‘treatment’ is taking the help of family or friends. They can help or guide in overcoming the suffering. For example, parents or siblings or friends can help a teenager who is suffering from emotional distress due to relationship problems. Or the family members can help a man to overcome his alcohol addiction.
The next level of ‘treatment’ is taking the help of a professional counsellors – psychologists, doctors, psychiatrists. They understand the problems of the mind better than a lay person. And they know varieties of techniques for overcoming the problems. Counselling or Psychotherapy helps a lot of people with different emotional or other problems. One has to diligently pursue it to get the maximum benefit out of it.
The next level of ‘treatment’ is taking medicines. It is important to remember that medicines are very useful for tackling mental distress or suffering. The benefits can be quite dramatic and useful. The most important advantage is that they don’t require too much effort on the part of the person – unlike other methods.
People are quite worried about ‘side-effects’ of medicines. It is interesting to note that everything in life has ‘side-effects’: you get married, there are ‘side-effects’; you don’t get married, there are side-effects; you have children, there are side-effects; you don’t have children, there are side-effects! We do something when we are getting significant benefits with smaller side-effects. The same is true for medicines.
In the case of distressed minds, the need for any of these ‘treatments’ is guided by the intensity of the problem.
The first criteria is the level of suffering. All of us suffer from mental distress as a part of our normal lives. We experience sadness, fear anger or just loss of happiness. Sometimes we lose sleep. Sometimes, the disturbance in the mind hampers working – inability to concentrate on work due to problems such as distractibility or brooding etc. Sometimes, we can see that the problems disrupt relationships. If a person remains gloomy and depressed, it can lead to relationship problems – at home or at work.
If the suffering or loss of functioning is quite intense or quite prolonged, then it is better to take some treatment. The ‘treatment’ can be any of those mentioned above. If the non-medicinal methods work, then it is the best. But if they don’t, then medicines should definitely be considered. As in the case of problems like diabetes or hypertension, the person’s own efforts should continue. They can control the problems or reduce the need for medicines.
