Bhagavad Gita: An Approach towards Psychological Well-being of Fathers having Thalassemic Children

Description

Page: 415-418

Laxmi Dubey¹ and Surabhi Misra² (Department of Psychology, S.N.G.P.G. College, Unnao, Uttar Pradesh¹ and Principal, S.N.G.P.G. College, Unnao, Uttar Pradesh²)

Thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder causing chronic abnormality of red blood cells. Children patients suffer unending pain and trauma; whereas caregiver parents, especially fathers, experience continuous anxiety, mental burden, and insecurity for future crisis and challenges to maintain financial sources along with handling family and social pressures. Psychological well-being is associated with longer and better quality of life, and teachings of the Bhagavad Gita inculcates in the mind’s true enlightenment and a perfect sense of mastery for happiness, peace, and psychological stability. The counseling approach of the Bhagavad Gita towards understanding and accepting the challenges and miseries of life and working on them helps people maintain a strong, perseverant, and resilient approach to overcome the dark phases of life. This study is an attempt to examine the impact of Bhagavad Gita Counseling on the psychological well being of fathers having thalassemic children. A sample of 20 fathers of the 25 to 50 age group was selected purposefully from Sharda Narayan Hospital, Mau. A pretest-posttest control group design was implemented, wherein participants were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control group. Both groups underwent an initial pretest assessment, followed by the experimental group receiving the intervention of Bhagavad Gita Counseling, while the control group did not. Subsequently, both groups completed a post-test assessment. To evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was employed as the statistical technique. The result obtained shows a significant difference between the experimental and control groups when baseline data was controlled. This may be attributed to the fact that the counseling approach of the Bhagavad Gita towards understanding and accepting the challenges and miseries of life and working on them helped the people maintain a strong, perseverant, and resilient approach to overcome the dark phases of life.