HIV/AIDS: The dreaded demon that blackens human emotions

Pages: 365-369
Nilanjana Sanyal and Manisha Das Gupta (Department of Psychology, University of Calcutta, Kolkata)

HIV/ AIDS appears to be an epidemic in the present day, both at the global and national level. It calls forth a myriad of negative emotions at the detection of HIV, some of the chief ones being denial, anger, depression, fatigue, fear, uncertainty, guilt, and changes in perspective. Counsellors need to take into consideration the darkened affects of such patients to help them to cope with the condition proactively. The present discourse sheds light to the efficacy of post-test counseling in offering adequate psycho-education, helping the system to combat negative emotions adequately and adopting a different perspective toward life in general, being loaded with greater extent of inner realization and deeper philosophy to embrace the reality gracefully. The “emotional crises” faced by such individuals has also been explained from the experiential perspective.