Redefining mental health via a multidimensional approach using Biopsychosocial interventions

We at Eve Psychosocial Rehabilitation Centre are pushing to change the way we view and talk about mental health.

We have a radically different vision of severe mental illness from the one held by most of those in the mental health field and most in society that mental illness is a brain disorder that can be treated only with medication.

For decades, the psychiatric field took diagnosis to be fundamental disregarding the fact that social experience plays a significant role in who becomes mentally ill, when they fall ill and how their illness unfolds. We believe that we should view mental illness as caused not only by brain deficits but also by abuse, deprivation, and inequality, which alter the way brains behave.

Mental health challenges result from the complexity intertwined in our biology and social, psychological, spiritual, cultural, and historical forces. To fully understand mental health conditions, we need to consider the complex interplay between all these factors. Illness thus requires biopsychosocial interventions, not just pharmacological ones.

Our counsellors, therapists, and psychiatrists work hand in hand to personalise and explain the true, complex forces that lead to mental health conditions and explore how to reduce or manage these risk factors, they see increased empowerment and reduced internalised stigma in their participants with mental health conditions using both pharmacological and biopsychosocial interventions parallelly.

Antipsychotic medications are helpful, but there is no evidence that it corrects an underlying biological or psychological abnormality. It is important that those who suffer from distressing symptoms be allowed to talk about their experiences. We believe that this helps them make sense of what has happened to them. The mental health services available now rarely make such opportunities available.

Hence why, we strive to redefine the way we approach mental health and its management one step at a time with a multidimensional approach using Biopsychosocial interventions. We strive to move away from labels of diagnosis. We treat the individual and not the illness. Empowerment gives people a sense of greater control over their own lives. We would like to see more people getting it.