What happens when social stigma shapes a mental health professional’s bias against their patient? Are there cases of members of the LGBTQI community being shamed or judged while they struggle to understand their identity, by the very people they seek out for help?
An undergoing survey by a Chennai-based student and a Mumbai-based counselling psychologist is attempting to track just that.
Psychology student Prateek Sharma describes one incident that he came across, wherein a patient was slapped and thrown out mid-session by his therapist, for having accidentally revealed his bisexuality. The patient (kept anonymous for reasons of privacy) was already fighting ADD and OCD, and was undergoing that particular session to deal with a nightmare. It was during the course of describing the nightmare that he ended up revealing that he was bisexual, and was made to leave.
“When you have a physical ailment and your doctor is biased, you would be upset, but you can always just switch to another doctor. In cases of mental health, such behaviour by your doctor or counsellor can affect the ailment itself,” points out counselling psychologist Sadaf Vidha from Mumbai, adding, “We are supposed to carry the patient to a mental space where they feel safe. The patient may already be feeling targeted by others around them; coming from a professional, this feeling just increases.”
Vidha also says that the very act of seeking therapy is the end result of a big personal struggle for most patients, and negative experiences like these can make them withdraw back into their shell and not seek further help at all.
During her practice, Vidha encountered a number of patients who spoke of negative previous experiences and the impact it had on them. Sharma, on the other hand, had also begun documenting such instances that he came across. The two friends realised that the issue was quite widespread, and decided to figure out just how bad it was, by making a survey and putting it online. So far, they have received just over 50 responses, from metropolitans like Mumbai and Delhi, to smaller cities like Surat and Jaipur. They are waiting for a larger body of responses before drawing conclusions.
Sexual identity is not the only criteria where they found cases of bias, however.
“Even before we came up with the survey, while we were going through personal stories individually, we saw situations where counsellors were blaming a woman’s unmarried state for her mental health problems,” says Sharma, by way of example.
Vidha also came across cases where psychiatrists were dismissive of the negative side effects that patients were suffering due to medication. “They would take any complaint or feedback by the patient as a personal affront,” she says, adding that often, patients aren’t warned of physical side effects at all.
It’s not all bad news in the survey, however. Vidha and Sharma have received some positive recommendations as well, and are trying to list out some mental health professionals who are more accepting of their patients’ struggles. The idea, they stress, is not to criticise the fraternity, but to figure out the problems and point out the positives wherever they exist.
The survey form can be accessed at http://therapypal.in/
