Despite the increasing morbidity and mortality due to mental health conditions affecting a large section of the Indian society, mental health often remain overlooked. While the COVID-19 pandemic prompted increased attention to mental health, the discourse primarily situated mental health within the illness paradigm, narrowly focusing on individualised interventions – individual counselling, coping, and clinical healthcare. Such a narrow focus on biomedicalised perspective fails to acknowledge the intricate interplay of sociocultural, political, environmental, and economic factors perpetuating mental health inequalities across diverse communities. This course widens the discourse on mental health beyond the realms of ​‘psychology’ and ​‘psychiatry,’ introducing students to community-based approaches to mental health that encompass mental wellbeing. In light of the stigma surrounding mental health, it reinforces the need to engage with diverse communities in an ethical and empathic way; understand their expressions of mental wellbeing; experiences of ill health; the social factors contributing to these experiences; perceptions of normality; and attitudes towards seeking mental healthcare. Such perspectives are critical for students who aspire to work in the domain of mental health at the population level.

Taking a rights-based approach, the course will introduce students to the evolution and basic principles of the Mental Health Care Act, 2017. This course will provide students an interactive platform to appreciate that mental health is not just an absence of illness rather a state of wellbeing, discuss the historical and social perspectives on mental health, diverse approaches to addressing mental health problems including the role and response of the state. Overall, this course tries to develop a comprehensive perspective on mental health, an appreciation of ethical sensibilities requires to work on the mental health-related needs of the communities and a nuanced understanding of community-based approaches to ensure equitable access to mental health.