The fourth Masterclass on counseling was held on 12th June 2010 at MOHAN Foundation, Chennai. Ms. Chandini Srinivasan, our expert faculty cum counselor covered the topics of Grief counselling as well as early childhood influences and parenting on the day.
Grief Counselling:
Ms.Chandini explained to the participants the five different stages of grief counseling – Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. She also spoke about the therapeutic techniques used in grief counseling – Psychotherapy, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. Ethics of counseling was discussed as part of therapeutic techniques.
Early childhood & Parenting:
Early Childhood starts from 2 to 6 years, which plays a vital role in the development of a child and lays the base for the future personality. The child’s behaviour, physical and mental development that takes place during this stage was discussed. Then Ms.Chandni described the different types of parenting – Authoritative, Permissive and Democratic parenting. Democratic parenting would be the healthier kind of parenting compared to the other two and helps children to develop a positive attitude. Parents play a major role in supporting a child in various activities and therefore in personality development; if one of the parents is supportive and the other is not, the conflict can affect the child’s personality.
The positive and negative aspects of the different types of family systems was discussed. In a joint family system, a child could have confusion in identifying the hierarchy and therefore in carrying out instructions. Similarly in a nuclear family, a single child may not learn the art of sharing and adjustment. However, there are positive aspects in both types of family which would enhance the personality of the child.
Case Discussion:
Grief can be an ongoing process, but there exists an option to do something positive even in such a situation and that is through organ donation. Veena, Transplant Coordinator, MOHAN foundation, shared her experiences, at the Government General Hospital, Chennai, in converting the grief of 10 families to something meaningful. She also discussed the cases which failed to go through the retrieval process due to various reasons, for e.g., inability to maintain the donor, opposition by one parent although the other was willing, unavailability of the near relative.
Living in a culture where family bonds play an important role, consent from the whole family will support the cause of organ donation. This will give one satisfaction to the very end. Any cause cannot reach out to society with just one man's thought; we need to build a chain which never ends to achieve an aspiration.
The end of the four-week Masterclass on Counseling formed a strong chain of volunteers and their support has made the organ donation movement even stronger than before.
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