IPS, IMA keralam units oppose ‘Happiness and Wellness’ tag for mental health centres

Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS), Kerala, and the Indian Medical Association, Kerala, have opposed the proposed renaming of Government mental health centres as “Happiness and Wellness Centres”, arguing that removing the concept of ‘psychiatry’ from the identity of specialist medical institutions in an attempt to tackle stigma could instead undermine the scientific and medical nature of psychiatric care.

IPS Keralam pointed out that mental health centres are, first and foremost, tertiary level treatment centres in the public sector that offer guideline-based modern psychiatric treatment to all patients, including those with serious mental disorders. These are also eminent training and research institutions and calling them “happiness and wellness centres” is unscientific, to say the least, it said.

In a letter to the Health Minister K. Muraleedharan, the IMA proposed that the mental health centres in the State may be renamed as “Regional Institute of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences”, retaining “psychiatry” as the principal medical specialty with significant neuroscientific foundation, while recognising the wider behavioural sciences associated with mental health care.

Psychiatric care, it pointed out, goes far beyond counselling or behaviour correction. Psychiatrists diagnose and treat a wide range of disorders involving cognition, perception, consciousness, emotion, memory, attention, impulses, addictions, sleep and other functions. Treatment can include medication, psychotherapy, psychosocial interventions, rehabilitation and procedures such as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

Patients at these centres include those with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe depression, acute psychosis, suicidal crises and neurodevelopmental disorders, among other conditions, the IMA said. “Changing the name of the institution cannot change the nature of these illnesses,” it argued.

Creates confusion

IPS Kerala pointed out that it should be understood that happiness is a mood and not a treatment goal. Patients with acute psychosis, severe depression or suicidal ideation are not going to be helped in any manner because of the rebranding of mental health centres as “happiness” centres. Such re-branding trivialises serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia and implies that mental illness and wellness are same concepts.

Both IMA and IPS also pointed out that the Government Mental Health Centres at Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode are revered teaching institutions running postgraduate level DNB Psychiatry programmes and naming these as “happiness/wellness centres” can create ambiguity about the institutions in academic documentation and professional circles.

Both organisations also argued that changing the name of an institution was unlikely to address the deeper causes of stigma surrounding mental illness as stigma reduction is possible only through sustained education, communication and community initiatives and not through a change in name.

The issue was ultimately about ensuring that the name of a major public medical institution accurately communicates its specialty, academic purpose and place in the health-care system, they said.

DNB psychiatry trainees

Meanwhile DNB Psychiatry trainees at the State Mental Health Centres have also joined issue and pointed out that renaming psychiatric training institutes as “wellness” centres dilutes the clinical identity of the institutions and undermines both public health delivery and postgraduate psychiatry education

They added that “wellness centre” terminology would create credibility problems in academic communities and medical councils