Dr Ananya Sinha
Dr Ananya Sinha is an RCI-registered trauma-informed, LGBTQ-affirmative Clinical Psychologist with over 10 years of experience. She is the Founder & CEO of TherapHeal, a global online mental health organization. She is an International Affiliate member of the American Psychological Association (APA). She pursued her M.Phil. in Clinical psychology from the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS), Delhi and her Ph.D. from the prestigious Department of Clinical Psychology, NIMHANS, an institute of national importance (INC). She has been the university topper in her MPhil course and believes in providing empathetic, safe, non-judgemental spaces to her clients. She regards her profession as an opportunity to serve people and help them overcome their challenges She has extensively worked with multicultural clients and is specialised in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, Trauma focussed work, Couple Therapy and LGBT affirmative therapy. A NET and SET qualified Senior Research Fellow recognised by the University Grants Commission and recipient of the Presidential Faculty Fellowship, Binghamton University, The United States of America; her doctoral work delved into the ethical aspects of psychotherapy and counselling. She has written book chapters, published her research in international journals and has been invited as speaker in multiple international conferences. She had served as a Clinical Psychologist in Dumdum Central Correctional Home , West Bengal and in multiple mental health clinics. She has also held teaching positions at Christ University, University of Calcutta and the Indian Psychoanalytical Society. She has been quoted in the Telegraph, Economic Times, The Wire, Parent Circle, Newslaundry and the like.
Resilience training for mental health practitioners
It costs to care for others. Skovholt, Grier, and Hanson (2001) underlines the occupational hazard for members of a “high touch” profession, such as therapists, counselors, nurses, teachers, and social workers. Counselor burnout has been well documented (Lee, Cho, Kissinger, & Ogle, 2010). Burnout is described as a state of mental and emotional depletion coupled with physical exhaustion (Osborn, 2004) that results from high work demands and low job satisfaction (Lee et al., 2010).
This workshop will help mental health practitioners to help build resilience and to provide respite from the demands of their work.
Learning outcomes:
• Familiarised with the relation between burnout, vicarious trauma and resilience
• Familiarised with characteristics of highly resilient therapists
• Assessment of one’s level of anxiety (resilience and burnout) using self-assessment tests
• Familiarised with the procedures and useful techniques of resilience-building
• Familiarised with ethical implications of burnout
• Familiarised with the techniques of managing burnout
An interactive and participative training framework will be used, including both individual and group-based activities, to familiarize participants with methods of addressing burnout and building resilience as a mental health practitioner. The workshop will use examples and case vignettes which will allow for both global/universal and local/contextual perspectives; along with videos, questionnaires, activity sheets and experiential exercises like buzz group activity, role play and facilitated group discussion. Additional resource materials and self-directed learning assignments will be provided to support continued professional development after the workshop. Region-specific information resource materials will also be provided.
Audience: Clinical Psychologists, counselors, psychiatrists and psychiatric social workers, mental health trainees
How the topic related to the conference theme:
Healthcare professionals are experiencing unprecedented levels of occupational stress and, particularly post the COVID-19 pandemic (Johnson et. al, 2020). Higher stress and burnout in health professionals is linked with the delivery of poorer quality, less safe patient care across healthcare settings. In order to better support healthcare professionals, a tailored resilience workshop will help in addressing the intrinsic challenges of healthcare work in health professionals and students and help in better mental health of mental health practitioners and more efficient therapeutic service delivery.
Johnson, J., Simms-Ellis, R., Janes, G., Mills, T., Budworth, L., Atkinson, L., & Harrison, R. (2020). Can we prepare healthcare professionals and students for involvement in stressful healthcare events? A mixed-methods evaluation of a resilience training intervention. BMC health services research, 20(1), 1-14.
