The discourse in mental health education in India has been dominated by the medical discipline of psychiatry and allied disciplines of psychology and psychiatric social work. The assumptions made by these disciplines about 'normality' and 'sanity' that are informed by a clinical and often a 'deficit model' of human behaviour and experiences have been critically viewed within social sciences. One such critical view is the excessive emphasis on the 'individual', 'intra psychic' processes in defining mental health as against recognition of the role of society and it's structures of gender, caste, class, religion and culture in impacting individual experiences of well being or illness and in determining what is seen as 'appropriate', 'normal' and so on.
The authority, position and power of mental health professionals as 'experts' and their use of tools such as diagnosis, classification of illnesses, prescriptive treatments has been critically viewed from a lens of power and oppression. Alternative and divergent perspectives are provided by users of mental health services. Care givers and family members of persons with mental illness have their own experiences and all these together bring rich insights to the understanding of the experience of mental illness and experiences within care and treatment systems.
This course provides a glimpse into the role of social structures in
construction of the 'normal' and the 'abnormal', social control and regulatory
function of medicine through development and use of 'expert' knowledge of
diagnosis and treatment and creation of treatment regimes through the birth of
the mental institution. The course also provides a glimpse into the experience
of the most marginalised, the person diagnosed with a mental illness.
- Teacher: Ketki Ranade
Communication is an essential part of academic life. Academics communicate in various ways- in the classroom, they communicate with students to enable learning; outside class, they communicate with students to coach or mentor them; in conferences they communicate with other researchers; through their research they communicate with the academic community; and at times, they make presentations to organizations and governments regarding their research findings. Knowing the proper manner of communication as well as skill in communication in each of these contexts is crucial to the academic's influence on his or her environment. This course sensitizes students to the importance of communication in academic life and provides them with hands-on skills in various aspects of communication.
- Teacher: Zubin Mulla
- Teacher: Dr. Balamurugan Guru
- Teacher: ramesh veerappan
- Teacher: Manish Jain
- Teacher: Padma Sarangapani
Human Security has become an overarching concern in the context of debates on development, welfare and conflicts. This is particularly important when development trajectories in many parts of the world especially in the global south, has not been able to ensure the rights of populations to lead a life of dignity and security. On the other side the national and global security debates are in several instances found to have violated the basic human rights. The incorporation of the traditional notion of state security into human rights law frequently qualifies rights to allow for state discretion. Thus human security can reduce "excessive” state discretion in the realization of rights.The twin dimensions of freedom from 'wants' and freedom from 'fear' aptly stresses the necessity to address the welfare and developmental needs alongside protection of populations from threats or varying nature thereby the need to look at the vulnerabilities of populations in a holistic manner is emphasised. If human security assumes importance along side national security, the considerations of state security over people's security would change; that is, human rights could not so easily be neglected in the name of security, rather it allowes a framework to consider both aspects as complementary to each other.
Learner Objectives:
At the end of the course, scholars will be able to:
1. Conceptually understand of human rights, human development and human security through an analysis of current debates.2. Locate the relevance of human security in the context of discourses on development, welfare and peace.
3. Understand the issues of human insecurity in situations of social and political conflicts, disaster situations and situations of development deficits as a fall out
of dominant discourses on development and security.
4. Have an acquaintance with the processes through which a diverse set of fctors perform their responsibilities to ensure human security and develop a
critical appraisal of the same.
- Dr. P.K. Shajahan: Shajahan PK