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| Entertainment |
| Society: Moulding a rehab culture |
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by
Herbert Chandilanga, 24 February 2007
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09:12:01
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It is a dog eat dog world that we are living in. Heaven has broken loose, it seems, and the unexpected and bizzare happenings now roll in from all corners at top speed, threatening to shatter society beyond recognition.
It is a long list that one can compile on the ills emanating from troubled minds. Last year, a man in Kasungu allegedly set six houses on fire after his wife denied him sex. Marrietta Samuel had her hands severely hacked by husband Herbert Mankhwala and the limbs were later amputated. John Tomas—now convicted and sentenced to hang—killed his niece and roasted some of her body parts, which he ate without an iota of guilt.
The space here is too little to compile all the ‘insane’ acts emanating from people’s troubled psychology. But the bottom line is that when most of these incidents happen, the perpetrators and their victims are down on a journey to a troubled lifestyle, with trauma often sticking to the latter for the rest of their lives.
But there is a group that is filling the air with hope that the ferocious tide can be tamed. They come in the name of Psyconsult: a Specialist Psychiatrist Dr. Felix Kauye, Clinical Psychologist Eric Umar, Health Psychologist Sandra Ali Mapemba and Psychologist Maclean Vokhiwa, the new outfit’s managing director. They are currently housed in CSC building in Blantyre.
The a psychological services consultancy, according to Vokhiwa, is set to work with associates Dr. Nahid Mazloum who is an Education and Training Consultant and a Guidance Counsellor besides a pool of other mental health professionals including psychiatric clinical officers, psychiatric nurses, organisational psychologists, debt counsellors and legal advisors that are engaged from time to time for specific assignments to help people deal with issues affecting their mental well-being.
Sociologist from the Centre for Social Research at Chancellor College in Zomba Dr Charles Chilimampunga says the situation on the ground is ripe enough to have services like those to be provided by Psyconsult. He says the services are long overdue.
“Hardships that people are going through are even responsible for the many mental cases you see today. Many people need expert attention. There are individuals offering the services, but we need to scale up on these now,” he says, quickly igniting a question on who needs the services most.
“I wouldn’t single out a group that needs attention most, but if I really should, then I would say it’s the adolescents and the elderly. The adolescents have a problem in managing their affairs, probably resulting into rampant risky behaviours,” says Chilimampunga.
Youths make up more than 50 percent of the country’s 12 million population. The population has been hit by a spell of crime and gender-based violence, among many other ills.
Chilimampunga says Malawians have not done enough in using the services offered by psychology experts to solve societal problems.
“Malawians don’t understand psychological problems like depression. We never look at such problems as serious, but they really are,” he says.
He stresses that the services are a must both for the individual and institutions like prisons or schools.
“People under academic, professional or any other pressures require these services,” says Chilimampunga.
Vokhiwa brags about services the group is to offer. There is the Employee Assistance Programmmes (EAP) which targets employees and their immediate family members with any personal or work related problems, family relationships, job pressure, financial burdens, relationships, psychological trauma resulting from accidents, robbery, domestic violence, ill health or those living with HIV and Aids.
“In short, all other problems that negatively affect their job performance in the workplace,” says Vokhiwa.
But can the average Malawain afford the services?
Chilimampunga takes the question with an inch of doubt, but eventually paints a picture that the servises can come without shattering people’s budgets.
“Sometimes the cost is high but one or two things can be done to ease things up. Society or institutions can set up what are called training of trainers programmes so they have someone to offer the services at lower costs. We have to raise the profile of the psychological problems and then embark on efforts to deal with them,” he says.
In other countries, expert psychological counselling or rehabilitation has formed an intergral part in restoring people’s shattered reputations, as reported by the international media.
Only last week, British pop star Robbie Williams was admitted to a rehabilitation centre in the United States to undergo treatment for prescription drug addiction.
Renowned rapper Marshall Mathers aka Eminem once spent three weeks in a rehabilitation centre and an additional three weeks serviced through the outpatient programme. He completed his cycle for patients at-risk of drug abuse. Reports initially stated that “exhaustion and other medical issues” were the cause for Mathers to enter the centre.
Closer to home, South Africa’s immensely talented yet wayward soccer son Jabu Pule was at some point reported to have made good progress in correcting his personal life and making strides on his way back to the soccer field through psychological counselling.
And there is the case of Mel Gibson, the director of the popular movie The Passion of the Christ. He had problems with alcoholism: his health, his image, his reputation and his chance to repair relations with the Jewish community towards which he had made venomous statements relied on rehabilitaion. He also participated in an outpatient programme of recovery.
Elsewhere, it is almost a prerequisite that corporate companies, factories, football clubs or musicians associations engage services of a pyschiatrist.
Psyconsult is, according to Vokhiwa and his team, a grouping of mental health professionals in Malawi which includes psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals formed to help fill the deficit of locally available psychological services in view of the increasing burden of mental health problems currently on the increase in Malawi.
“The increase is mainly due to the HIV and Aids pandemic, strained economic livelihoods of individuals, increasingly demanding work ethics, the shift in cultural values of people due to the influence of Western living standards as well as genetically influenced mental illness,” says Vokhiwa.
He expresses hope that the EAP will be put to good use and that it will help companies reap maximum benefits from their employees, thereby improving productivity.
“Psyconsult is better placed in Malawi to provide this important service by virtue of being locally-based hence we know the needs of the Malawian and we have the expertise,” says Vokhiwa.
He boasts that the company offers a confidential round-the-clock toll free telephone hotline (80-00-8888). Individual clients, companies and their employees and their immediate families have access 24 hours a day to counsellors through a free telephone service which allows them to call anytime at no direct charge.
Should the company maintain its vision and hit their targets, the benefits could be very welcome.
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