For every negative emotion, they have a positive solution

Shreya Tinkhede | TNN | Apr 16, 2020, 05:42 IST

Nagpur: As the coronavirus pandemic and its far reaching fear continue to unfold, it is natural for humans to feel a wide range of emotions. For the first time in the city, ‘MotivatedSteps’, an online counseling platform founded in November 2019, is providing online counseling services, sessions, talk therapy. MotivatedSteps has a team of 13 counselors all over India to help the people amid this stressful situation.
Khushal Katara, founder of MotivatedSteps, wanted to do something for the people who shy away from seeking therapy. It is coming in handy for teenagers and adults. They have successfully conducted over 200 sessions. “From April 1, 2020, we started with free telephonic counseling sessions for the people feeling low in this quarantine period. It’s a step to make people feel heard and helped,” he said.
Problems such as extreme anxiety, panic attacks and clinical depression are surfacing. “We have diagnosed people with depression and anxiety because they are not able to step out. Initially they would go out and calm themselves but now being grounded at home is taking a toll on many people’s mental health,” said Pooja Thakkar, clinical psychologist associated with the platform.
Thakkar stated by the time the lockdown ended there was a high risk of people getting OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), agoraphobia, and major addiction of alcoholand drugs. “Continuously cleaning hands or being very particular about anything can lead to OCD. Agoraphobia is fear of going out and meeting certain new people. We recommend a psychiatrist for the people who show withdrawal symptoms or hallucinations because of alcohol addiction or substance abuse,” she added.
Patients have stated the urge to not living to the fullest or being negative about life during quarantine. For such patients, Thakkar said, “We conduct several talk therapy, video call and telephonic sessions. Talking about a problem always helps. Controlling the obsessive habits and calming our mind down are the keys to such problems,’’ she added.
Stigma about mental health is still prevalent. Many teenagers and youngsters using MotivatedSteps are not able to talk to their parents about feeling blue. “We are receiving overwhelming response. Now people have a venue to share their problems,” said Garvita Singh, counseling psychologist at MotivatedSteps.
She said couple problems, relationship issues and even problems between parent and child had become more frequent during quarantine. Singh said a client had said she was not able to maintain healthy relation with her child. “There’s going to be a lot of breakups and divorces in future. But at least people are talking about it and we provide sessions to help them come out of it,” she added.