-Chunet Dolma
My name is Chunet Dolma and I am from Changthang Ronga, Ladakh. I completed my schooling from TCV Ladakh, TCV Selakui and TCV Suja. And later pursued undergraduate studies at the Dalai Lama Institute for Higher Education, Bangalore. I finished my post-graduation in Masters in Psychology from Chandigarh University.
I always wanted to become a Mental Health Advocator in our community and aspire to create a convenient and safe environment to talk freely about mental health issues. I feel stigmatization and taboos around mental health in our community are still prevalent. As someone who studied the theoretical aspect of psychology rigorously for the past five years, I have a special interest as well as a moral responsibility to spread awareness and normalise mental health issues in the community. However, without any practical hand-on-experience, I felt inadequate, ill-equipped and under-confident especially when it comes to dealing with people with mental health problems notwithstanding my towering determination and commitment to serve. As such, I was looking forward to doing short-term practical training but due to financial constraints, I could not do so until I approached and applied for the ENVISION Fellowship programme.
Through the ENVISION programme, I pursued an intensive three months training programme in clinical psychology from Psychowaves, Ludhiana starting June the 10th this year. During the course of the training, I was given training on how to take a case history and mental status examinations of clients. I was given the opportunity to observe and examine five case studies. These case studies taught me the fundamental principles and knowledge of formulating treatment plans, observational techniques etc. I dealt with a heroin addiction patient and a patient with depression, also formulated their treatment plans. It was a great learning experience. My training got completed in September.