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Sexual Orientation Change Efforts among LGBT+ People of Kerala: Prevalence, Correlates, and Mental Health Aspects

Details
07 February 2023

This study won the DS Raju Award, given by the south India branch of the Indian Psychiatric Society, for the best research paper presented by a postgraduate student, in 2022. The resultant paper was published online on 6th February 2023 in the Journal of Homosexuality.

In accordance with the publisher's policies, we have made the final submitted version available for download. This paper was featured in The News Minute on February 15, 2023 and in Mathrubhumi on February 17, 2023 and in an article published on March 4, 2023.

The abstract is provided below:

Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) have been reported worldwide and have adverse psychiatric consequences. However, no data are available for India or Kerala. We assessed the prevalence of SOCE, its characteristics, and mental health aspects among LGBT+ individuals in Kerala. This cross-sectional survey used snowball sampling. An online questionnaire collected sociodemographic information and history and characteristics of SOCE. Religiosity and SOCE-associated distress were evaluated using 6-point Likert scales. Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) screened for depressive symptoms; its ninth question assessed death wishes and self-harm thoughts. Generalized Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7) screened for anxiety symptoms. Participants’ (n = 130) mean age was 26.80 ± 7.12 years. Most common biological sex (63.1%) and gender identity (50.8%) were male, and sexual orientation was gay(42.3%). Prevalence of SOCE was 45.4%. In SOCE group, 39% reported very severe distress. SOCE was most commonly self-prompted (47.5%), performed through psychotherapy (28.8%), and performed by doctors (28.8%). SOCE group had significantly higher religiosity scores (t = 2.61, p = .01). Among cisgender men, 48.48% had SOCE history, against 28.57% among cisgender women (χ2 = 3.19, p = .07). SOCE is highly prevalent among the LGBT+ community in Kerala, with high associated distress. Multi-level approaches are necessary to mitigate this problem.

Sexual orientation change efforts conversion therapy LGBT LGBT Mental Health Religiosity

Book review: "Em and the Big Hoom," a story of love and madness

Details
15 June 2023

(This review received second prize in a national-level book review competition conducted by Indian Psychiatric Society in 2021 and has been published in the Kerala Journal of Psychiatry)


One year of being a resident in psychiatry has taught me that mental illness is a lot more than a few neural circuits, neurotransmitters, and a handful of pills. In psychiatry wards, one meets two kinds of people: “those who suffer from mental illness and those who suffer from the mental illness of someone they love.” While the former are caught in an abyss of darkness forever, the latter have to walk the tightrope between love, guilt, and shame.However, an onlooker might find that world difficult to comprehend. Hence, for most authors and filmmakers, madness is either romantic or humorous. Em and the Big Hoom,a novel by Jerry Pinto, gives a raw and intense portrayal of mental illness.However, the novel is much more than the tale of a manic-depressive woman and her family. It is a story of introspection, love, helplessness, hope, fear, and sheer warmth; all blended into a narrative that is as much an autobiography as it is fiction.

The story unravels in a 50-square-foot flat in late twentieth-century Bombay. The unnamed narrator, his sister Susan, and their parents, Imelda and AugustineMendes (nicknamed Em “with an exclamation mark” and the Big Hoom), “live, love, and deceive one another within earshot” in this house. The cramped apartment also represents the reality of their lives, which once held great promise but has now shrunk into the penumbra of Em’s ever-changing moods. Em moves unpredictably from dark, fathomless depression to stratospheric mania in a span of moments. Her moods claw the family together yet inflict deep, bleeding wounds on each of them.

The story begins with Em in the psychiatry ward of J.J. Hospital and the narrator peering through one of her old letters. Em calls her husband ‘Angel Ears’. Peppered throughout the narrative are more such endearing nicknames that convey a sense of warmth, despite the author laying out a heart-wrenching story. A non-linear, yet seamless and flowing, narrative follows, which takes the reader across different timelines. We see a Bollywood-style love story blossoming between Imelda, the daughter of a Burmese immigrant family, and Augustine, who had run away from a Goan village. Both are silently coming to grips with new lives in new places. Imelda is a nervous office newbie who finds peace in the routineness of a stenographer and passively hands over every paisa of her earnings to her mother. Augustine is the well-dressed office heartthrob who manages to climb up the ladder despite having humble beginnings. The author’s prose moves back and forth between past and present as the children try to re-imagine their mother when she was “whole,” to find the roots of her disease. In that sense, the entire book is about the quest of the narrator and his sister to make sense of their surroundings—“the big, demanding place with no fixed syllabus.”

Read more: Book review: "Em and the Big Hoom," a story of love and madness

ഒപ്പം

Details
22 August 2020

ചെറുതായി പോസിറ്റീവായൊരു കാര്യം പറയാനുണ്ട്.

പത്ത് ദിവസത്തോളം കോവിഡ് ഡ്യൂട്ടി ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നു. പല പല വാർഡിലായി അഡ്മിറ്റായ രോഗികളിൽ മാനസിക സമ്മർദ്ദം നേരിടുന്നവരെ കണ്ടെത്തുകയും അവരെ സഹായിക്കുകയുമൊക്കെയാണ് ജോലി. ഇടക്ക് വച്ച് ഒപ്പമുള്ളാരു ഡോക്ടർ പോസിറ്റീവായപ്പോൾ ഞാനും പോയി സ്വാബെടുത്തു. നെഗറ്റീവാകും എന്നേതാണ്ട് ഉറപ്പിച്ചതാണ്. രോഗലക്ഷണങ്ങളൊന്നും ഇല്ലാതിരുന്നത് കൊണ്ടും ലോ റിസ്ക് എക്സ്പോഷർ ആയത് കൊണ്ടും പ്രോട്ടോകോൾ പ്രകാരം ഡ്യൂട്ടി തുടരണമെന്നാണ്.

സംഭവങ്ങളൊക്കെ U ടേൺ എടുക്കുന്നത് രണ്ട് ദിവസം കഴിഞ്ഞ് കോവിഡ് സെല്ലിൽ നിന്ന് കമ്യൂണിറ്റി മെഡിസിനിലെ ഒരു ഡോക്ടറുടെ ഫോൺ വരുമ്പോഴാണ്.

Read more: ഒപ്പം
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