KiiT-IS Organizes Webinar on “Enhancing Mental, Emotional and Psychological Sessions”

The Department of Commerce and Humanities, KiiT International School (KiiT-IS) organized a Webinar on “Enhancing Mental, Emotional and Psychological Sessions” in collaboration with Manam Foundation, a Mental Health Organization. The resource persons for this webinar were Dr. Anuradha Mahapatra and Somya Mahapatra.

At the outset, Dr. Partha Sarathi Das, Coordinator, Commerce and Humanities addressed the audience regarding the importance of mental health and wellbeing and the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the mental wellbeing of the people, especially students and young adults. He introduced the resource persons and gave a brief outline regarding Manam Foundation and its work. Following this, Ms. Pushpa Patnaik, the Staff Secretary of KiiT-IS and Career Counsellor briefly described the need and importance of counselling and mental health services during this pandemic situation.

The webinar began with Dr. Anuradha Mahapatra introducing the idea of understanding our minds in terms of our thoughts, emotions and personality. She discussed how Covid-19 pandemic has affected us all in different ways and the challenges that we are facing in terms of mental wellbeing. She gave the students a Gauge-O-Meter to increase awareness of their mental, emotional and psychological state. Following this, Ms. Somya Mohapatra elaborated on how the students can use the Gauge-O-Meter to monitor themselves in domains related to their social functioning, family, career/academics, and self. While sharing their personal experiences in this regard, both of the resource persons cited the examples on how the outcomes of Covid triggers among students and  adults in terms of frustrations in family, dip in productivity, lack of personal and professional clarity and experience of challenging emotions and existential crisis. The techniques to overcome the problems of over-thinking, fatigue, lack of attention, impulsiveness, mood swings, aggression, anxiety, depression, addiction, panic attacks, etc were also analysed. They  shed light on how  the students  can deal with trauma and stress by identifying and avoiding unhealthy and maladaptive coping mechanisms, and building the right mindset of accepting oneself as one in, understanding and accepting the situations rather than ignoring them, seeking help and sharing one’s difficult feeling with the right people like counsellors and therapist, finding one’s spiritual contents, having right knowledge, learning new skills and hobbies, practicing relaxation techniques, following a routine, developing a sense of gratitude, responsibility, self-improvement and commitment towards holistic wellbeing of self and others.

After the presentation of the resource persons, the platform was opened for a question-answer session where the resource persons addressed different queries of the students. The session was concluded with the vote of thanks of Mr. Sitakanta Tripathy.