Featured Guests
Dr. Ashish Roy
Ashis Roy has a Masters degree in Psychology from the University of Delhi. Following his post graduation, he completed a three-year program on ‘Training as a Psychodynamic Psychotherapist’ at the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Delhi. He is currently pursuing his doctorate—an exploration of the notions of ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ in intimate Hindu-Muslim relationships—from the Department of Psychology, University of Delhi. He is interested in exploring the relevance of psychoanalytic clinical thinking in the field of qualitative research.
Ashis has been a consultant for non-governmental organizations such as Saathi, Prayas, Salam Balak Trust and Pradan. His work involved interviewing and understanding repatriated children and adolescents, and documenting their journey from the streets to their homes, and engaging with issues of poverty and mental health.
He has worked as Guest Faculty in Zakir Husain College and Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi, and as a Counsellor in Delhi Police Public School, New Delhi.
Neville Shah
A regular at comedy clubs around the country, writer and stand-up comedian Neville Shah has been performing on both international stages, and as well as in India. Known for his scathing point of view and his witty comic timing and repartee, Neville recently toured for and released his Amazon comedy special, What Are You Laughing At?. Prior to that, has done a nation-wide tour with his previous special, We Should All Kill Ourselves, a combination of self-deprecation, and blatant rhetoric on social change and societal double standards.He is also a member of SnG Comedy, a popular comedy collective that has amassed 470000 subscribers and 61 million views. Their content consists of sketches, stand-up, and a candid interview/chat series The Big Question which has featured several popular guests.
Link: depression is a serious issue among youth, with an increasing number of suicides each year. In addition, the World Happiness Report, 2019 ranked India 140 out of 156 countries.
Suicide rates
(NCRB 2019) National Crime Records Bureau https://ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/files/Chapter-2-Suicides_2019.pdf
India reported an average 381 deaths by suicide daily in 2019, totalling 1,39,123 fatalities over the year, according to the latest
A 3.4 percent increase was observed in suicides during 2019 (1,39,123 suicides) as compared to 2018 (1,34,516) and 2017 (1,29,887), the data showed.
For every 100 suicide deaths, 70.2 were male and 29.8 females, the NCRB, which collects data from police recorded cases, stated.
Family problems (other than marriage-related issues) were behind 32.4 percent of suicides, marriage-related problems (5.5 per cent) and illness (17.1 per cent) together accounted for 55 per cent of the total suicides in the country during 2019, it stated.
Of females who committed suicides, highest number (21,359) was of house-wives followed by students (4,772)
House- wives accounted for 51.5% of the total female victims (21,359 out of 41,493) and constitute nearly 15.4% of total victims who committed suicides (21,359 out of 1,39,123) during 2019. -
Since 2001, more than 20,000 housewives have killed themselves every year in India.
Source: In 2019, at least one student died by suicide every hour in India. The Year recorded the highest number of student suicides, 10,335 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/a-student-commits-suicide-every-hour-/articleshow/78102907.cm
Gender differentials and state variations in suicide deaths in India: the Global Burden of Disease Study 1990–2016 link
Is Happiness U-shaped Everywhere? Age and Subjective Well-being in 132 Countries link
When you statistically control for things like education and employment status, happiness, he finds, is always a "U-shaped" curve over people's lifetimes. That is, it starts high in youth, then trends down and hits bottom in middle age, and picks back up in old age. This is true in all the countries he analyzes, including 95 developing nations. He finds that people are, on average, most unhappy at age 48 in developing nations and age 47 in developed ones. "The happiness curve is everywhere," he concludes.
Gender Differences in Emotion Expression in Children: A Meta-Analytic Review link
We analyzed 555 effect sizes from 166 studies with a total of 21,709 participants. Significant, but very small, gender differences were found overall, with girls showing more positive emotions and internalizing emotions (e.g., sadness, anxiety, sympathy; g = −.10) than boys, and boys showing more externalizing emotions (e.g., anger; g = .09) than girls. Notably, gender differences were moderated by age, interpersonal context, and task valence, underscoring the importance of contextual factors in gender differences. Gender differences in positive emotions were more pronounced with increasing age, with girls showing more positive emotions than boys in middle childhood (g = −.20) and adolescence (g = −.28). Boys showed more externalizing emotions than girls at toddler/preschool age (g = .17) and middle childhood (g = .13) and fewer externalizing emotions than girls in adolescence
Lonely for Different Reasons: Talking to Vivek H. Murthy link:
Pew Social data: link
When it comes to traits or characteristics people in our society believe men should not have, no response stands out: Somewhat similar shares say most people in our society believe men should not be emotional or sensitive (15%),
How adults can create a safe space for young people to thrive - an article written by Vishal Talreja https://thriveglobal.in/stories/how-adults-can-create-safe-spaces-for-young-people-to-thrive/
“If children get love and care, they can do anything. When they don’t, their minds get distracted, diverted and they contemplate suicide, escape from marriage, stealing. One must give them purely 100 percent. If one puts them down, how will they grow? By the time they emerge from that, they will have aged,” Nandish (interviewee/case study)
How To Raise Boys Who Aren't Afraid To Be Vulnerable | HuffPost Canada Parenting: link
Society has long expected boys to ignore their emotional sides. Here are small ways parents can push back.
The reasons why 63 Indian housewives killed themselves every day in 2018 link:
Arranged marriages, early motherhood, domestic violence and economic dependence are among the main causes.
Grogan, J. (2013). “It’s not enough to listen.” Psychology Today. : link
Anyone who’s ever engaged in effective empathetic communication knows It requires your full attention and emotional presence.
Your Flaws Are Probably More Attractive Than You Think They Are: link
Beautiful mess effect: Self–other differences in evaluation of showing vulnerability: link
A total of seven studies demonstrate the predicted self–other differences in the evaluation of showing vulnerability in various situations, such as confessing love, revealing imperfections of one’s body, or asking for help, including evidence on the generalizability of the effect in a real-life situation.
Number of psychiatrists in India: Baby steps forward, but a long way to go link:
Surveys indicate India has only about 9,000 psychiatrists for its 1.3 billion people. (By contrast, the U.S. has 28,000 psychiatrists for a population of 325 million.)
Blue Dawn, a mental health support and facilitation group targeting the intergenerational trauma of these communities link
The World Health Organisation estimates that the economic loss from mental health conditions in India from 2012–2030 will top $1 trillion.link
The National Mental Health Survey of 2016 suggested low-income Indians had a 40% higher rate of depression than the national average. Link
The Perils of Social Isolation
When human contact is cut off, the brain may manufacture social experiences. Link
It’s clear that meaningful connection to other people is as essential to our health as the air we breathe. Given that prolonged periods of social isolation can crack even the hardiest of individuals, perhaps in the absence of actual human contact our brains may manufacture social experiences in an attempt to preserve our sanity.
Social Isolation and Loneliness: link
A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) in the US points out that more than one-third of US adults aged 45 and older feel lonely, and nearly one-fourth of adults aged 65 and older are considered to be socially isolated.
Parenting children with Anxiety: link
Many studies, drawing on multiple data sources, confirm this; one of the more recent analyses, by Pew, shows that from 2007 to 2017, the percentage of 12-to-17-year-olds in America who had experienced a major depressive episode in the previous year shot up from 8 percent to 13 percent—meaning that, in the span of a decade, the number of severely depressed teenagers went from 2 million to 3.2 million. Among girls, the rate was even higher; in 2017, one in five reported experiencing major depression.
From 2007 to 2017, suicides among 10-to-24-year-olds rose 56 percent, overtaking homicide as the second leading cause of death in this age group (after accidents). The increase among preadolescents and younger teens is particularly startling. Suicides by children ages 5 to 11 have almost doubled in recent years.
Opinion | How to Protect Your Mental Health During the Coronavirus - The New York Times link
How to Become a Friend to Yourself link
Feeling lonely probably won’t kill you, but genuine social isolation might, researchers discover | South China Morning Post link
Social isolation – time actually spent alone – boosts the risk of dying by about thirty per cent in people who suffered a stroke or heart attack
Our Brains Are Hardwired For Compassion link
The Difference Between Worry, Stress and Anxiety link: