Counselling is must to help students in stress

KANPUR: Everybody cannot be a counsellor & help an individual in overcoming stress. Schools claiming that teacher-student interaction is enough for a student to deal with exam-related stress 're only voicing a myth.
This piece of information was shared by eminent city-based psychiatrist Dr. Unnati Kumar with students & teachers in the wake of forthcoming Board exams. He was present during a workshop organised by the Indian Medical Association in order to help the students fight anxiety & stress & also inform parents how to maintain a conducive environment at home in order to keep their wards stress-free.

Giving tips on counselling techniques to various counsellors & psychological experts, Dr. Kumar stressed that the counselling session should not exceed more than 40 minutes. "The sittings & sessions, including the attention span, should be of 20-40 minutes & then they should be repeated," said the psychiatrist.

Points Disscussed:

• How to assess the individual coming for counselling?
• How to develop therapeutic relations with the patient?
• How to create emotional ventilation between counsellor a & student to help ease his/her strain?

Through various demonstrations, other psychological experts, including Dr. Alok Bajpai, & IMA members, including president Dr. AC Agarwal & secretary Dr. Alka Sharma, spoke on how parents & teachers could help in boosting up the confidence of the child.

Psychological experts also pointed out that counselling sessions were like a pyramid of which parents were the base & should counsel their children. However, 80% of them 're counselled by their teachers. "Out of the total, 15% of the students also require a counsellor who can help them deal with their problems & 5% 're special cases that require the support of a psychiatrist," maintained the experts.

It was also advised that a school with more than 500 students should 've at least one counsellor & a team of 10-15 counsellors should 've a psychiatrist to head them.