Monday, March 6, 2017
University life can get very stressful for students, therefore the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences (MGSHSS) Student Advising Unit (SAU) collaborated with the Emergency Medical Services to host a mental health workshop on February 18-19, 2017. The workshop was conducted by renowned psychologists, Dr. Asma Humayun, Dr. Israr Ul Haq and Dr. Faisal Rashid Khan.
The workshop involved lectures, case studies, role plays, and hands-on exercises related to common mental health problems such as anxiety and depression, mental health disorders with their associated protocol, and dealing with stress on a day-to-day basis as well as ways of regulating and mitigating it in the long-term. As a part of the workshop, one-on-one free and confidential counselling sessions were offered to the entire student body of LUMS.
The workshop was followed by a mental health consultation camp open to the entire LUMS community, in which members of the student body were able to approach the three specialists for counseling. The purpose of the camp was to help students manage any stress and anxiety that they may face and to train students on how to identify more serious issues to help themselves and other students on campus.
After the interest shown in this workshop by students, SAU plans to host similar workshops in the future, which will involve the staff and faculty to ensure the entire LUMS community benefits from mental health awareness.