Former Director General of Police Letika Saran had a message for budding psychologists: Take a break from work to take care of your own mental health.

Noting that there was a lot of similarity between mental health professionals and the police department, she said during the 1990s and early 2000, all that inspectors of All Women Police Stations dealt with was settlement of grievances, basically marital discords.

“People with all kinds of problems will come your way. That is going to be your daily diet. So, you are going to be hearing similar stories day after day. Here is my advice. Just take a break, if you can take a break in the week or sometime in the day. Go out for a walk, learn a new skill, do something that takes your mind off your work every day. If you are able to do that, you will be able to take care of your patient and yourself,” she told students at the inauguration of a two-day international conference on Monday.

The conference, ‘Professional excellence in mental health practice - A way ahead’ was organised by the Indian Academy of Professional Supervisors (IAPS) in collaboration with Madras School of Social Work (MSSW).

Among the objectives of the conference was to create awareness about professional supervision and its importance to the counselling fraternity in the Indian context and to know different therapies counsellors could use in their practice.

Noting that supervised practice was not followed among novice mental health practitioners in India, Vasuki Mathivanan, founder and president of IAPS, said, “The aim of the conference is to understand professional supervision and know the significance of supervised practice.”

Among others, resource persons David Gotlieb from Australia and Balan Rathakrishnan from Malaysia, R. Subashini, dean of MSSW and Sumathi Narayanan, founder secretary of IAPS spoke.