Getting my Grad Dip in Psychotherapy and Counselling

I've always found psychology, the scientific study of the human mind and how the mind affects behavior, endlessly fascinating. This fascination extended into neuroscience, the study of our brain and nervous system. The  rise of mental health issues, in particular depression as a global disease burden (affecting 264 million people), has enabled both psychology and neuroscience to combine intersectional research efforts into further understanding mental health disorders, which take an enormous toll on individuals, families and our society at large. According to the World Health Organization:

• Mental, neurological and substance use disorders make up 10% of the global burden of disease and 30% of non-fatal disease burden.

• Around 1 in 5 of the world's children and adolescents have a mental disorder. 

• Almost 800,000 people die by suicide every year; 1 person dies from suicide every 40 seconds. Suicide is the second leading cause of death in individuals aged 15 - 29.

• The global economy loses about US$ 1 trillion per year in productivity due to depression and anxiety. 

• Rates of mental health workers vary below 2 per 100,000 population in low-income countries to over 70 per 100,000 in high income countries, which limits access to treatment. 

• More than 40% of countries have no mental health policy and over 30% have no mental health program. Around 25% of countries have no mental health legislation, causing lack of awareness about and stigmatization of mental health, particularly in Asian societies. 

The rapid growth of technological innovation has helped accelerate psychology and neuroscience research, from obtaining data on emotions at scale through apps, to mapping and coding out brain activity using artificial intelligence (AI) devices.  The China Brain Project, a 15-year project targeting major scientific discovery and technological development for early diagnosis and intervention of brain diseases, and brain-machine intelligence technology by 2030, estimates that if no effective treatments of brain diseases emerge in the coming decades, the global medical care system is likely to collapse by 2050.

Technology is driving global industrial disruption at scale, affecting the way we work and live. As someone who has worked in tech startups for a decade, focusing on market adoption and growth, I embrace change as a constant when working with the evolution of consumer behavior in adopting new technology. Growing a tech startup is all about relentless execution, and it came at the expense of my mental health. A painful breakup last year triggered a signal that I needed help, which revealed a diagnosis for anxiety and depression. This diagnosis then led me onto a lifelong path of personal growth and conscious living in integrity with my value system.

The study of psychology was not just an intellectual curiosity anymore, but it became an intense obsession of mine. Deep down, I want to know how I can consciously evolve into the type of human being that I want to be, what type of relationships I can enter into and how can people engage with me on a new level of openness and emotional vulnerability with my personal growth work and mental health advocacy. 

I embarked on both an academic and non-academic path in living out my obsession with psychology. In 2002, I had taken a Psychology elective with Dr Maureen Vincent in my first year at Trinity College and scored 97%. After my breakup in 2019, I recalled the fond memories I had of my Psychology classes, and decided to commit to a rigorous path of self-study whilst still working full-time, so I studied a Grad Dip in Psychotherapy, Counselling and Positive Psychology with The School of Positive Psychology, taking night classes every week night after work for a year. 

During the COVID-19 lockdown, I co-founded a startup called Ministry For Good, which seeks to raise awareness on mental health issues and how technology can be used to improve access to mental health care and help scale other social impact causes. Our first project was raising awareness on the symptoms of dementia and exploring how AR/VR technology can help with reminiscence therapy.

I also became a super user of digital mental health therapeutics, testing out current product offerings in the market on myself. I believe that the ability to code emotion using AI, will help enable early detection of mental health issues. In Rosalind Picard's book, Affective Computing, she writes:

“Emotions are important in human intelligence, rational decision making, social interaction, perception, memory, learning, creativity and more. "They are necessary for day-to-day functioning." If the point of AI was to design smarter computers that could emulate human thought and decision making, our machines would need more than pure logic. Like human beings, they would need a way to interpret and process emotion.”

Rana El Kaliouby, CEO and Co-founder of Affectiva, an emotion AI startup, writes in her book, Girl Decoded:

“I was also struck by the vital role of emotion in enabling people to make sound decisions. At the time, I believed that the best decisions were based on cold, calculated logic that didn't let feelings get in the way. In fact, as I learned, decades of neuroscience showed just the opposite to be true. Your "feelings" don't get in the way, they improve your thought processes.”

As a next step, I am keen on developing a psychotherapy practice through The School of Positive Psychology to help others journey through their anxiety and depression using talk therapy, and help equip them with the cognitive tools to manage their symptoms, just as I have done to heal myself.

Stay blessed xo