Development and trends in counselling services in Bangladesh: Need for professionalism

Pages:110-114
Shaheen Islam (Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh)

Bangladesh is a country of 15 million people where about 16% people are suffering from some sort of mental health problem that needs psychological intervention. However counselling is one of the stigmatized and misinterpreted concepts prevailing among the general population as well as professionals. In the last decade, different human right organizations working for disfranchised people have recognized and addressed the need of mental health counselling as a helping component of multi-sector holistic approach to care and service delivery. Government of Bangladesh has also acknowledged the need of counselling services and incorporating it in public health and educational sector due to increase in social malice like drug addiction, suicide, eve-teasing, aggression, domestic violence, etc. But due to very limited manpower, resources and proper orientation much of the counselling services are delivered by many unskilled amateur counselors with little or no training. This is not only increasing the risks of doing more harm than good, but also impeding the growth of counselling as a profession. This paper will address the issue of training of mental health counselors to provide community based preventive support to meet the emergent necessity and continuous demand for initiating officially approved certified and institutional counselling courses.