Psychiatry and Society

The legal age for obtaining an alcohol permit (yes, that's a prerequisite for alcohol consumption in Maharashtra) is 25 years. However, a recent survey of teenagers in major Indian cities including Pune would have us believe that 45% of Class XII students consume alcohol five to six times a month. Adolescence is characterised by experimentation The maturing adolescent brain with its new tool of abstract reasoning seeks to explore the environment and reach its own conclusions regarding the world. Experimenting with socially acceptable intoxicants is just another facet of this behaviour. So, whether legal or otherwise, some of Pune's teens will continue to consume alcohol. When does alcohol drinking become problem drinking? Is it to do with the frequency? If 5-6 times a month is excessive would 2-3 times be alright? Is it OK to drink alcohol in groups but not OK to drink when alone? When would it be time to seek help? How would a teenager know the experiment has gone out of con...

A family tragedy was played out through a small article in the Pune news . In a fit of rage a mentally ill woman set her daughter alight while she was asleep. The narrative was short and the item tucked into one of the inner pages under a largish headline.  This was the reason - the why - mental illness     A glib explanation for a horrific event lays the entire burden of its causation at the doors of a mental health disorder. The World Health Organisation  (WHO) has estimated that one in four persons  will have a mental health disorder at some stage of life . Violence is rarely a manifestation of mental illness In this rare cause of burning (mental illness), the burning of her daughter is an indicator of the severity of the mother's mental illness. Yet society, of which this news item is a barometer, has unquestioningly accepted mental illness as a sufficient cause. In a nation with about 0.48 mental health workers of any kind  for every 100...