Women and mental health.

Image by Herstory

The international women’s Day is celebrated annually on March 8^th globally bringing attention to issues such as gender equality, procreative rights, and violence and abuse against women. According to the United Nations, It is a day when women are acknowledged for their accomplishments without regard to divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic, or political. It should be noted that the celebrations are linked to women’s movements during the 1917 Russian revolution New Zealand was also among the first governing counties that allowed women to vote. According to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, he coins out the fact that Today, women make up under a third of the workforce in science, technology, engineering, and maths. When women are under-represented in developing new technologies, discrimination may be baked in from the start”

This year’s theme is DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality we’ve seen women make tremendous contributions to the world of science and technology and had significant personalities in science and technology roles thus making decisions that contribute to the STEM spectrum. IT innovations reduce the growing health ramifications, thereby engendering positive health outcomes (e.g., psychological well-being). In fact, technology’s rapid revolution of the world has worked as a catalyst, resolving problems across the healthcare ecosystem. Mental health is a significant part of a person’s well-being, with the growing number of individuals experiencing mental health crises, understanding the impact of technological change has become vital for ensuring individuals’ psychological health. Technology assimilation helps officialdoms, and individuals enhance people’s mental health. In the present digital era, IT-enabled advancements are deeply rooted in firms’ structures thus ensuring positive mental health.

My attention would be focused on women’s mental health when the thought of women’s mental health comes to mind, often times it is associated with mental conditions such as anxiety disorder, or clinical depression. As the matter of fact is that these two categories are very different than each other. Women’s mental health is extremely important and should never be put on the back burner.

Women’s mental health is multifactorial and is determined by both biotic and societal factors. Examining the clinical profile of mental disorders in women brings to light the fact that men and women are affected inexplicably by mental illness. The greater vulnerability of women can be owing to physiological changes as well as social factors such as poverty, sexual abuse, stress, intimate partner violence, and so on. Mental health during pregnancy and postpartum deserves special attention as untreated maternal depression results in serious ill effects for both the mother and the child. Reproductive health problems like infertility, female sterilization, and reproductive tract complaints also have been related to poor mental health in women. It is important to view mental health programs in a gender-based approach to circumvent the unique challenges posed by women’s mental health today. Apart from this, exploring other modes of service delivery such as mobile phone technology which has the potential to be effective and improve accessibility to services can boost mental health delivery for women.

Women’s mental health is an important element in one’s overall well-being and contentedness, as it maintains cognitive alternates, emotional sanity, and balance of ourselves, lives, and relationships. When one is mentally balanced and at peace with themselves internally, they are practicing good mental health.

• Cognitive: This type of mental health focuses on maintaining brain function which can better memory, the ability to retain information, and boost logic.
• Emotional: It is imperative to well-being that there is balance in everyday life, both in personal and career-oriented lives. When it is accepted that there is peace with oneself, this means that one is actively exhibiting positive mental health and well-being.
• Psychological: What this refers to is the ability to adapt to life changes, whether that means stressful life events such as the loss of a loved one. By looking at the positives of these life-changing events, one is promoting well-being.

It may not be known to all, but an unhealthy mental state can lead to problems in relationships, careers, and even spirituality. The state of one’s mental health has the capacity to affect many facets of everyday life without one truly knowing it. With busy life schedules and routines to adhere to, it can be tough to balance everything while still maintaining good mental health.

When it comes to the importance of mental health care for women, it is important to take a look at how their mental health issues differ from those of men. Newer research suggests women are more prone to psychological problems, such as depression, suicide, other mood-related disorders, self-harm, sexual assault, eating disorders, pregnancy or miscarriages, trauma, depression, anxiety, and loneliness or isolation, which some people may find triggering issues affecting women’s mental health.

Around one in five women have a common mental health problem, such as depression and anxiety. While there can be many reasons why these develop, some risk factors affect many women. Women are more likely than men:

• To be a carer, which can lead to hassle, worry, and seclusion due to neglect.
• Living in deficiency which, along with concerns about personal safety and working mainly in the home, can lead to social isolation.
• To experience physical and sexual abuse, which can have a long-term impact on their mental health. (Refugee context).
• To experience sexual violence, which can cause PTSD or stress-related disorders.
• When women find it hard to talk about difficult feelings, they tend to internalize them. This can lead to depression, eating disorders, sleep disorders, and self-harm. Men are more likely to act out their feelings through disruptive or anti-social behavior.

We ought to take good care of our mental health, interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy a way of replacing irrational/maladaptive thoughts with more positive and productive thoughts, crisis care such as psychological first aid to reduce initial distress, medications have been tailor-made to reduce on the symptoms that manifest due to mental illness such as hallucinations, it should also be noted that having a mental capacity or ability to air out your feelings reduces distress, mindfulness-based practices such as being fully present and engaged at the moment without judging feelings and thoughts have proven to be effective, peer support such as self-help groups create more cohesion and belonging maintaining an individual’s psychological flexibility.

Ends!!!!

Explaining the relationship between psychology and terrorism.

On the 16^th of November at around 10am, Uganda was shocked to two explosions killing at least 5 civilians and injuring several others in what the security agencies described as extremist coordinated attacks against the country, these explosions caused a lot of turmoil and destruction of property in the affected areas the police spokesman during his press conference blamed the allied democratic forces (ADF) a terrorist group attached to the Islamic state. Over the past decade world over such un coordinated acts of terrorism have been existing right away from the 9/11 bombing of the twin towers in New York back in 2001. On the African context we’ve seen acts of terrorism such as the bombings of the American embassy in Nairobi Kenya on the 7^th of august 1998 where more than 200 people were killed and another bomb detonated outside the U.S, embassy in Dare salaam the capital of neighboring Tanzania. In 2010, the most noticeable attack was during the FIFA world cup games in two locations i.e.  Ethiopian Village restaurant, situated in the Kabalagala neighborhood, with many of the victims foreigners, fifteen people were killed in this attack. The second attack, consisting of two explosions in quick succession, occurred at 11:18 pm at Kyadondo Rugby Club in Nakawa, where state-run newspaper New Vision was hosting a broadcast of the match for the 2010 world cup final.

This leads to ask what influences such acts, who are the people who engage in such trends of instilling harm to others, what could be the causes.

Terrorism can be seen as an unlawful act of violence perpetrated on civilian’s non-combatants which are either to coerce governments or societies thus instilling fear. The main goal is to achieve philosophical, religious or dogmatic objectives. It ought to be noted that terrorism seeks to upset a few people and shock a lot of people in order to make a point. Terrorism can often be used a mode of communication designed to make a point, through psychological means, and fear. Incapable to achieve their impractical goals by predictable means, international terrorists attempt to send an ideological or religious message by terrorizing the general public. Through the choice of their targets, which are often symbolic or representative of the targeted nation, terrorists attempt to create a high-profile impact on the public of their targeted enemy or enemies with their act of violence. Definitions of terrorism vary widely and are usually inadequate. Even terrorism researchers often neglect to define the term other than by citing the basic U.S. Department of State (1998) definition of terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.” Although an act of violence that is generally regarded in the United States as an act of terrorism may not be viewed so in another country, the type of violence that distinguishes terrorism from other types of violence, such as ordinary crime or a wartime military action, can still be defined in terms that might qualify as reasonably objective.

The approaches to terrorism analysis can be defined by the multi causal where terrorism is seen as a result of multiple factors such as economic sociological, political approach based on a hypothesis that a person is born with a personality trait that influences him to be a terrorist, organizational approach bases on the fact that acts of terrorism are committed by groups who reach collected beliefs the physiological bases on the role of the media in spreading terrorism       thanks to media coverage, the methods, demands, and goals of terrorists are quickly made known to potential terrorists, who may be inspired to imitate them upon becoming stimulated by media accounts of terrorist acts and the psychological approach is concerned with the study of terrorists per se, their recruitment and induction into terrorist groups, their personalities, beliefs, attitudes, motivations, and careers as terrorists.

It should be noted that people became terrorists in various ways, in different roles and for different reasons there tends to exist a school of thought that terrorists are evil or psychologically disturbed individuals, but most terrorists are normal. Mental illness cannot be used as a critical factor in explaining terrorist behavior since not all terrorists are psychopaths and lastly there is no terrorist personality described in the diagnostic and statistic manual for mental disorders DSM-5 thus making any normal person a terrorist.

One may ask what motivates terrorists at most times since most of the people who carry out terrorist acts pertain of different demographic populations such as race, religion, sex, age, gender etc. it ought to be noted that terrorism is a product of strategic choice pilled with psychological forces such as deprivation. Terrorist ideologies tend to provide a set of beliefs that justify and mandate certain behaviors in line with beliefs regarded as absolute and the behaviors are seen as serving a meaningful cause for example if we’re to take kin attention to the mass shootings in America and the mass shooting in Christchurch in New Zealand over time where people aligned to be white nationalists engage in domestic terrorism.

The psychology of terrorism and religious fundamentalism mainly relates to the context of the group joined by normal people that come to embrace transcendent values promoting the phenomenon of intense but normal group dynamics when the individual’s social world is reduced to a single group, the norms of that group have enormous power. No sane human has ever had the idea that he or she alone was destined for some form of immortality it is participation in and contribution to a group, family, religion, nation, cause that offers some form of immortality.

It is best to note that terrorists tend to identify with their cause and group, view the violence as worth committing even if they lose their lives and those of others, failure of their mission or cause is more disastrous to them than personal capture or death.

Apparently it should be noted that citizens disbeliefs in the ability of the government and its law enforcement agencies to protect the people like we see in Ethiopian where the Tigray have lost confidence in the government also growing up in communities where the use of violence to solve problems has been maintained for generations for example in the war tore area of the middle east such as Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen etc.

The seemingly existence of role models honored for their involvement in the historical violent struggles such as Osama Bin Laden the socialization based on the social learning theories account to the assimilation of such acts. The clash of religions, cultures, or political ideologies pilled with perceived unfairness or injustice for example tribal and political favoritismwith emotional and bigoted sense of mortification, disrespect, and injustice.

Society can be enlightened through primary prevention such as education, understand the differences in cultures, religions, beliefs and human behaviors, fostering peaceful co-existence, freedom and equality of all human beings, not just my group of people, establishing reconnaissance and monitoring system on terrorism attacks, Improve protective system for citizens.

Tertiary prevention such as early detection of the sources, Prevent the extension of impairments, Rescue the survivors, Console the rest of the population.

The impact of terrorism reaches many aspects of health and health care: acute and chronic symptoms of anxiety and depression, changes in health-related behaviors, and long-term strain and tension.

It should be noted that individual responses to terrorism depend on a number of factors. Genetic makeup, social contexts, past experiences, and future expectations may interact with the characteristics of the traumatic event to produce a psychological response. Close proximity to the event, severity of exposure, low levels of social support, previous psychiatric illness, history of trauma, and ongoing negative life events may all influence the onset and course of mental illness.

ASD and PTSD are more likely to develop in those exposed to violence or personal threat to life, and in those experiencing overwhelming fear. Symptoms of ASD are common following exposure to traumatic experiences. By definition, ASD is a time-limited disorder, and the degree of impairment or distress is highly variable. It is likely that many persons who meet symptom criteria for the disorder will not experience prolonged functional impairment and will not seek medical attention.

By Kulindi Tito

Clinical psychologist

What will it take to end Gender-Based Violence in Uganda?

“Gender-Based Violence (GBV) can be viewed as a general term used to capture violence that occurs as a result of normative role expectations associated with each gender, along with the unequal power relationships between the two genders within the context of a specific society.”

While women, girls, men, and boys can be victims of GBV, the main focus of this resource package is on violence against women and girls. This is not to say that GBV against men does not exist. for instance, men can become targets of physical or verbal attacks for transgressing predominant concepts of masculinity, for example, because they have sex with men. Men can also become victims of violence in the family by partners or children. (Bloom 2008, P14)

However, GBV is also common among the LGBT community Lesbian and Transgender women face the highest risk, but get the least attention strategies to curb violence against women too often exclude the experiences of lesbian, bisexual and transgender women. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC)  marked last year’s 16 days of activism to end violence against women by highlighting the disproportionate violence, and discrimination that many lesbian bisexual and transgender women face and called on the World Bank to develop policies that consider the unique needs of these women.

Violence denotes the forceful infliction of physical injury .it can be a physical attack such as fighting, punching or using a weapon be it blunt or sharp. Aggression, on the other hand, has a more general meaning, not just physical assault it can be verbal attacks for instance arguments destructive criticism, name-calling or hostile attitude.

Aggression describes the intentional infliction of harm, including psychological harm as well as injury. However, what is constructed as harmful depends on values and social context and society legitimized punishment or self-defense is less likely to be identified as aggression this aggression is doing harm unjustified from the observer’s perspective and the concept cannot be divested of its moral significance.

Gender-based violence in Uganda can be ended by community-based action approaches to prevent and eliminate GBV such as.

•  Women and girls have increased access to appropriate legal, medical and counseling services and strengthened means of economic independence.
•  Using strategies such as cash transfers skills training for income-generating activities and interventions to prevent violence against women at the household and community level.
•  Participants attain positive and sustainable outcomes on livelihoods through the knowledge on protecting economic assets and strategic diversification of productive activities.
•  Ministry of gender labor and social development ought to acknowledge gender-based violence as a prevalent problem in Uganda.
•  Prevention should also be early in life by educating both boys and girls and working to promote respectful relationships and gender equality.
•  Awareness –raising and community mobilization including through media and social media is another important component of an effective prevention strategy.
•  Encourage women to participate in the political processes and educate the public about the value of women votes.
• Sensitize the public to the disadvantages of early and forced child marriages.
• Strengthen women’s ability to earn money and support their household by providing skills training for women.
• Promote the peaceful resolution of disputes by including the perspective of women and girls.
• Highlight the value of girl’s education and of women’s participation in economic development.

Has nudity become the new trend to portray to society that an individual is dissatisfied with what’s going on?

On the 12^th/8/2019 Ugandans were filled with opinions on what academician Dr. Stella Nyanzi did during a court session which she was charged and sentenced, due to her dissatisfaction with the ruling she went nude. The general public was left in shock and different views were being expressed about the act she did, some claiming she’s a psychiatric case and needs to be examined, others saying she’s abnormal. However, their people who feel like her nudity was the best way she would have reacted to prove a point to the system that she is dissatisfied. The question is did she score or not?

According to Trujillo G, 2017 she suggests that using nudity for protesting can be a tactic to attract public attention considering a particular cause, hence leading people to strip themselves off their clothing in order to portray how, their political, social rights have been taken or suppressed thus making nudity effective since their demands will be taken seriously and something urgent ought to be done/needs to be resolved.

Undressing in public, people/protesters assert some power they still possess hence making meaningful attitudes that show compliance to defiance. Relating to our own Ugandan concept how is this whole nudity seen? Since religious institutions have set standards the same as cultural institutions about moral guidelines and how people in society are able to conduct themselves. Let’s talk about the concept of normality thus getting a clear picture. Normality could be seen as normality against which certain features of deviant or distorted conduct can be considered abnormal. There are ways in which normality perspectives can be viewed which include the following:

Normality as healthy, this shows the common trend relating to the medical terms of not being sick, therefore not portraying any signs of pathology, we consider behavior normal. Thus, health is reasonable rather than optimal.

Normality as being ideal (everything is perfect) here normality is seen in terms of a desirable state which states optimal rather than reasonable hence an average personality functioning. Perspectives might base on mental health or psychological growth/self-actualization are of this kind of cluster.

Normality as average, this focuses on statistics of measurement, when human achievements are measured values fall along a normal curve or a bell-shaped curve. Within statistical conception, the average is normal while both extremes are abnormal for example a doctor may say blood pressure as abnormally high or low hence commonly using the same phrase in describing an individual intelligence.

Normality as socially acceptable, here behavior is based in terms of social context when it occurs, such as conforming to the normative expectations of society is it normal or not. However, issues to do with cultural relativism should be noted for example behavior considered normal in society but abnormal in other societies while some behaviors considered abnormal in our societies and are normal elsewhere.

Normality as a process (Evolution), normality is seen as a process over time rather than in a cross-sectional perspective, evolution such as nature of biology, psychological systems hence valuation of a particular behavior may depend on the phase of life processes that’s why psychology theorists like Eriksson viewed personality development in terms of successive stages of development which lead to adult functioning and normality. It is the process, rather than a status that points along away that defines normality.

To all the skeptics I think these are very important start points that would be used to base their arguments since the issue narrows down to normality as socially acceptable which give a clear statement on how the issue should be viewed and for the insanity point of view my understanding of a mental disorder is it causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. Which we can see that the academician is not impacted by her acts however some would claim she lost her job,  is currently in jail, but according to the diagnostic and statistical manual for mental disorders (DSM-5) no disorder would fit Dr.Stella Nyanzi despite hearing some people classifying her in a paraphilic type of disorder called exhibitionistic disorder when you read the diagnostic criterion she literally does not feet in.

ENDS!

Explaining psychology and criminal behavior.

Criminal behavior might be referred to as the performance of any action, which is against the law. Many people become victims of crime and evidence suggests that all of us at some stage commit crimes. Many people often wonder why individuals often enter crime and why they keep on offending. This is especially so if the criminal keeps on being punished or imprisoned but continues committing crime, it’s therefore important to understand why some people became criminals. As with almost all behavior. It is not possible to identify one simple explanation for criminal behavior. Any piece of behavior is the result of a complex interaction between social, genetic and environmental factors.

The reasons for committing the crime are thus many and valid. For example one could steal to gain materials e.g. money, property etc. someone may join a gang or criminal gang for fear of losing friends and another may undress in public because of effects of drug abuse e.g. alcohol. A sadistic murderer does not kill because he is drunk or angry but because they need to feel that they are in total control of their victims for example the current kidnappings and killings of children and women in Kampala .The act of killing makes him feel invulnerable and in control. In a less extreme form some criminals commit criminal acts so that they can feel that they have achieved something positive, they have mastered the obstacles which they feel that society has put in their way for example failed state of security institutions and systems like police. Some people do commit crimes as a way of reducing their tension. Because the fact that human behavior is complex, we should not conclude that people always commit offenses for one reason. A real life example that could illustrate this point is that of a Boda Boda rider who raped a 19year old German passenger recently and robbed her of $1200. He narrated that it was a God sent opportunity as he always admired white girls. I.e. a great gratification. From his account it would appear that there were many reasons for the offense. The act was impulsive (He always had sexual fantasies and desires of having sex with female whites) the German girl excited him he felt in control and superior and it boasted his self-esteem. He also made substantial financial gains. In order to understand any crime, we must understand criminal behavior we have to consider all these factors such as, childhood experiences, Heredity, circumstances prior to the offence, current circumstances, crises and negative events, Reciprocal determinism etc.

In conclusion we need to focus on emotional intelligence the ability to perceive, assess and manage one’s own as well as the emotions of others attributes as such as accurately perceive emotions in oneself and others, use emotions to facilitate thinking, understand emotional meanings, manage emotions. Here we a able to relate cooperate with others, Help achieve goals, maintain satisfying personal relationships, live a more balanced lifestyle thus respond to others with empathy and compassion. Being creative and resolve conflict more easily. And the ways to improve our emotional intelligence include becoming self-aware, observe how we react in stressful situations, and manage our emotions, being socially aware.

KULINDI TITO.

A community Psychologist.

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