Ignoring mental health.

Byline: Muhammad Waqas Khan - Dera Ismail Khan

APPROXIMATELY 50 million people suffer from common mental disorders in Pakistan. Unfortunately only 400 trained psychologists are working in the country, meaning roughly one psychologist is available for half a million people. We have one of the lowest mental illness patient-to-doctor ratios in the world.

Mental illness refers to a wide range of mental health conditions that affect mood, thinking and behaviour. People go through periods when they feel emotions such as stress and grief, but symptoms of mental illnesses last longer than normal.

When symptoms become severe enough to interfere with a person's ability to perform daily chores, they are considered to have a significant mental illness. Sadly, prospects for care are bleak as many patients never seek treatment or are shunned by family members.

Psychologists in Pakistan believe that a majority of the population is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and not much is being done to help them. Since ours is a patriarchal society, it is rare that men in Pakistan admit their depression as this indirectly means that they have failed to cope with their responsibilities

With constant stress, terrorist attacks, absence of social security, poverty, illness, poor health standards, injustices, illiteracy and economic...