[antilt]

COMMENTARY

A need for counselling on the campus

PLOENPOTE ATTHAKOR

At the young age of 22, Chaninart Rungthiwasuwan, a fourth-year student of Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Science, had a bright future before her. The student had dreams to follow and hopes to fulfil.

That was until the morning of Monday, June 9, before she decided to take her own life by jumping from a building in the university compound. An eyewitness said the girl had a sad look on her face.

Initially, police linked stress and depression from study as the cause of her suicide.

With a bronze medal in the Academic Olympics chemistry competition to her credit, Chaninart had all along possessed an excellent academic record - her GPA was in the range of 3.8-3.9.

But it had been deteriorating since she was in her third year.

Her family has no doubts that it was education-related stress that drove the girl to take her own life. Her death must be a heavy blow to the family, which had recognised the girl's depression and sent her for mental treatment at Chulalongkorn Hospital. In fact, the girl's condition had improved though she was still on medication. Yet, sadly, Chaninart appears to have lost the will to fight.

The student's premature death should strike an alarm about education-related stress, which is not uncommon for students with outstanding academic records. Naturally, young people in this group are under pressure to maintain academic excellence in a highly competitive environment whether in school or university. While they are good at making grades, many in this group are too emotionally-fragile to deal with failure. Also in the at-risk group are students taking entrance examinations for a seat in university.

Statistics show there were 66 suicidal cases among university students that hit the news headlines during 2003-2008. Of the total, 61 students, including Chaninart, died.

Education-related stress, accounting for over 33.3% of all suicide cases, was found to be the second largest cause of suicide for people of this age, coming second after heartbreak, at 42.4%.

Experts, meanwhile, have raised concern about suicidal tendencies which have evidently increased since 2002 in younger people, or those aged below 15. The youngest-ever suicide victim was an eight-year-old boy. Attempts have been made under the 9th National Economic and Social Development Plan to reduce suicidal deaths among the youth, which stand at 7.1 per 100,000 population.

The case of Chaninart is prompting educational institutes to see the need to provide, and also improve, counselling facilities at their individual campuses to help stress-hit students cope better with their problems.

But the availability of such facilities is just part of the solution - a passive one.

Instead, families should learn to make their children strong mentally, enabling them to cope better with disappointments and losses and move on. In doing so, parents also have to learn to resist the temptation to push their children too hard. They must keep their expectations, regarding their children's education, at a proper level and not allow pressure to kill their children.

More importantly, students and others should be encouraged to learn their state of mind and recognise their own mental problems in order that they may know exactly when they are in need of professional help before it is too late.

But it must be admitted that Thais are not yet familiar with the idea of seeking counselling, which is a routine practice for people in any modern society, particularly in the West.

This is probably because there is a long-standing stigma among the Thai people which labels all people seeking counselling as "psycho", which certainly is not always the case.

It is this old stigma that keeps so many people suffering mental problems from seeking professional help, for fear that the treatment will be noted down in their personal records and might ruin their careers.

Let's kill the stigma and let the issue come out into the open.

It could save lives.

Ploenpote Atthakor is Deputy News Editor, Bangkok Post.

[themsrsdude]

I'm quite certain that the costs involved for the education increases the stress as well.

[antilt]

I'm quite certain that the costs involved for the education increases the stress as well.

Most certainly-but that is true for many students in many countries. What I think is different in Thailand is the inordinate number of graduates that work so hard-and pay so much -only to end up in menial jobs like department store shop assistant due to lack of any other opportunities/connections-possibly this is still particularly applicable to female graduates.

[LesLattis]

> But it must be admitted that Thais are not yet familiar with the idea of seeking counselling, which is a routine practice for people in any modern society, particularly in the West.
This is probably because there is a long-standing stigma among the Thai people which labels all people seeking counselling as "psycho", which certainly is not always the case.


yes. and that's how we have children with severe learning problems, dyslexia, autism, etc. in a bilingual school. so far we have seen only one family who was willing to face the truth and pull out their child and send him to a Thai-only school - after two years. another family was convinced to seek the help of a psychologist and get the child assessed - after the teachers got forms to fill in about the child's behaviour and progress, the parents were seen CHANGING the teachers' replies on one of the forms (checking boxes). and of course there are no special schools, classes or teaching assistants/helpers either for the mentally retarded, slow, special needs children or for the outstanding, extremely talented students. a colleague whose 3-year-old son was severely autistic had to move to Bangkok to be able to send the child to a school for children with special needs. Thai teachers don't seem to get any training on helping children with different /special needs. this whole situation is just not acceptable if Thailand wants to get anywhere.

[Kayacterype]

> But it must be admitted that Thais are not yet familiar with the idea of seeking counselling, which is a routine practice for people in any modern society, particularly in the West.
This is probably because there is a long-standing stigma among the Thai people which labels all people seeking counselling as "psycho", which certainly is not always the case.


yes. and that's how we have children with severe learning problems, dyslexia, autism, etc. in a bilingual school. so far we have seen only one family who was willing to face the truth and pull out their child and send him to a Thai-only school - after two years. another family was convinced to seek the help of a psychologist and get the child assessed - after the teachers got forms to fill in about the child's behaviour and progress, the parents were seen CHANGING the teachers' replies on one of the forms (checking boxes). and of course there are no special schools, classes or teaching assistants/helpers either for the mentally retarded, slow, special needs children or for the outstanding, extremely talented students. a colleague whose 3-year-old son was severely autistic had to move to Bangkok to be able to send the child to a school for children with special needs. Thai teachers don't seem to get any training on helping children with different /special needs. this whole situation is just not acceptable if Thailand wants to get anywhere.

Betti, in my opinion this is another aspect of the "face" syndrome so deeply entrenched in Asian societies.

[antilt]

There seems to be a contradiction in the way the disabled-mentally and physically-are viewed in Thailand.
One the one hand there is the general "folk Buddhism" belief that the disabled are being punished for sins in a previous life, on the other hand, the specific familial shame of having a disabled member-loss of face etc.
I feel that if monks were to promote proper care of the disabled as a positive opportunity for families, and society at large, to make merit, a lot of poor attitude to the disabled would change for the better.
But perhaps I am being too simplistic.

[Uplillacype]

Many people embarrass to accept "mental illness" in their families. Some of them are trapped in the belief that it's the consequence of karma, men or women with the record of mental treatment will not be pleased for employment, society, relationship, etc. To accept the fact/reason in this society is not easy to change.

Even though we have Department of Mental Health, trying to educate people and provide services such as call center/hotline but the interest is limited. Department of Mental Health reported yesterday, there are 3 million people with depression but less than 100,000 contact the doctor.

Anyway, there are many people use Buddhist approach to reduce stress and prevent depression, meditation is the popular one.

[RayFairhurst]

Almost everyone has had a bout with depression. It's nothing to be ashamed about. It can be triggered by stress, personal problems, extreme sadness, exposure to some types of drugs, some genetic predisposition, etc. There are different types and levels of depression but evidence from neuroscience, genetics and clinical research suggests that depression is a disorder of the brain. The good news is it can be treated--if properly diagnosed and managed.

There are two general types of treatment: 1) medicine and 2) therapy. Personally I can see that meditation can play a part to reduce stress or sadness, which can lead to depression. But once the patients have already developed severity of symptoms, they need both treatments to feel better. "Talk therapy" with a professional can help them understand the nature of the disease and make them cope better while the medicine intervenes in a physiological way.

[themsrsdude]

Another thought is that most health insurances don't cover mental diseases, meaning parents have to cover it from their own pocket so even if they want to seek out treatment they might not be able to.

Going back to my reply I was very worried my son would feel pressured into overachivement when I sent him to a private school this year but fortunally he seems to be an underachiver like his dad

[antilt]

Going back to my reply I was very worried my son would feel pressured into overachivement when I sent him to a private school this year but fortunally he seems to be an underachiver like his dad

Underachievers may be late developers. I left school with nothing. Not one piece of paper to say I was good at anything. Most of my teachers told me that I would amount to nothing. In front of the whole class (I was not the only one to get such kind words from such wonderful teachers in front of the class)
I went to University aged 32 and got a good degree (top 10%)-which was far more than the greater majority of my teachers ever had!

[soryalomop]

Kudos to you, Khun Don.

[soryalomop]

Almost everyone has had a bout with depression. It's nothing to be ashamed about. It can be triggered by stress, personal problems, extreme sadness, exposure to some types of drugs, some genetic predisposition, etc. There are different types and levels of depression but evidence from neuroscience, genetics and clinical research suggests that depression is a disorder of the brain. The good news is it can be treated--if properly diagnosed and managed.

There are two general types of treatment: 1) medicine and 2) therapy. Personally I can see that meditation can play a part to reduce stress or sadness, which can lead to depression. But once the patients have already developed severity of symptoms, they need both treatments to feel better. "Talk therapy" with a professional can help them understand the nature of the disease and make them cope better while the medicine intervenes in a physiological way.

There are some depression that will not go away. A small percentage of those with Major Depressive Disorder, Unipolar and Bipolar Disorder will have recurring depression. Their condition can only be managed but not cured.