Few people get treatment for mental health disorders across India

only one in ten people in India get appropriate treatment for mental health disorders and distress. Why do you think it happens? This article talks about what are the barriers mental health faces in India and why there is lack of treatment to mental health in India. And what are the solutions which can be taken to resolve the barriers?

Barriers to mental health in India

Barriers associated with mental health exist in India, some of which are:

• Stigma: People in India still hold a lot of taboos or stigmas about mental health. People with mental disorders or distress experience a lot of discrimination and social exclusion and therefore avoid treatment to their disorder or distress.

• Awareness: People of India don’t have much of awareness about mental health and its future concerns. It has been seen that people are not aware that they have any mental disorder or distress and often tend to associate their symptoms with any physical illness. People usually consult a physician rather than consulting a psychologist or counselor. So, it is also important that there is an increase in awareness about mental health to that people seek more treatment.

• Lack of availability of mental health education: In India, there are very few colleges that offer psychology as a course and therefore there is a lack of professionals in this field. Just like other courses more colleges should be made available so that we have more professionals to seek treatment from.

• Expensive: In India acquiring mental health treatment is comparatively expensive due to the lack of professionals as the average counseling session cost Rs 1000 which is not affordable for all sectors of the population especially those residing in rural areas.

• Informal Help: We have a tendency of taking help from our near and dear ones when we experience any distress rather than going to a professional. It is not that they can’t provide support to you but along with their support professional help is required to deal with mental disorder and distress.

Solutions

In order to eradicate this barrier few solutions are to be taken so as to increase the number of treatment-seeking populations:

• Increase awareness: It is important to increase awareness about mental health by establishing more institutes for mental health education, organizing public awareness programs, etc.

• Initiatives by Government: Government should take more initiatives by introducing more programs and policies for mental health and its treatment.