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The National President of the Ghana Psychological Association (GPA), says Ghana is currently experiencing a \u201cmental illness inflation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr Collins Badu Agyemang attributed the problem to stress, anxiety, and loss of jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic; the increase in crime, violence amongst the youth and high level of unemployment, amongst others.<\/p>\n
He said in terms of policy making and budgetary allocations at the national level, much was needed to be done to strengthen the relevance of psychological health in Ghana.<\/p>\n
Dr Collins Badu Agyemang said this on Monday during the launch of the Ghana Psychology Week 2022 in Accra.<\/p>\n
The celebration is themed: \u201cScaling up Psychology and its practice in the post-pandemic future: Reaching out to the vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lineup of activities include a visit to the Nsawam Orthopedic Training Centre to offer psychological support to staff and patients and a visit to the Nungua orphanage to offer psychological services to the children.<\/p>\n
They Association will also hold a social engagement with community and schools and the Sixth Scientific Biennial International Research Conference at the\u202fMethodist University College.<\/p>\n
He advised citizens to look out for one another and be concerned about each other\u2019s psychological or mental health.<\/p>\n
\u201cSocially, we all have a part to play when it comes to holistic health. We want to be on the lookout to check on our brothers and family members.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to be very observant. If you are with a family member, a friend, a colleague at work and you realize the behavioural patterns continue to change; they are becoming unduly quiet or the other extreme, they are overly excited, or you can see that they are not who they used to be, you may want to take the initiative to get close to these ones to find things out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The National President advised against allowing oneself to be needlessly stressed and take life one step at a time.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlways have a reason to be excited each day. This will reduce the enormous stress we put on ourselves. Thinking and worrying about things you have no options about is like sitting in a rocking chair.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would not change anything, but it gives you something to do. So, we need not worry; we need not think when we cannot do much about it but rather seek help from psychologists so they can support us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Dr Yaw Amankwa Arthur, Deputy Director, Mental Health\u202fAuthority (MHA), said psychological services received low patronage in times past because of the stigma attached to people who sought such assistance.<\/p>\n
However, he said in recent times, the patronage had increased due to the understanding of mental health and its importance to one\u2019s overall wellbeing.<\/p>\n
Dr Arthur advised that citizens prioritised mental health and seek immediate assistance anytime the need arose.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody is saying \u2018I am stressed out,\u2019 but it is more than being stressed out. There are more underlying psychological issues that people are doing. The impact of COVID, losing jobs, losing loved one\u2019s work stress and all that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are suffering, but they do not know how to deal with them. So, my simple advice is that those with psychological issues out there should go into our facilities, health facilities, be it a Regional Hospital or a District Hospital for help\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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The National President of the Ghana Psychological Association (GPA), says Ghana is currently experiencing a \u201cmental illness inflation.\u201d Dr Collins Badu Agyemang attributed the problem to stress, anxiety, and loss of jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic; the increase in crime, violence amongst the youth and high level of unemployment, amongst others. He said in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[661,9645,85,2707,227,1354,3116],"class_list":["post-1179759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-politics","tag-association","tag-experiencing","tag-ghana","tag-illness","tag-inflation","tag-mental","tag-psychiatric"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1179759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1179759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1179759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1179759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}