Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Psychosocial ....as i see it

It is a 12 letter word that is most interpreted and misinterpreted in the recent past history of SriLanka. Blame it on the ‘INGOs’, the war, and for the war you may want to blame several parties, and then the tsunami, blame it on anybody and anything even on the pandora’s box (RFN1), this word ‘psychosocial’ has gone a long long way far from simple definitions or descriptions.

I started working in this sector as a translator. I had to translate from Tamil to English and vise versa. I was tested and trialed with different groups of people for my ‘psychosocial sensitivity’, and during the process of being tested and trialed, I became psychosocially sensitive enough. I’m still in the same sector, still am unable to explain what is psychosocial in one single page, let alone one single sentence. For my dear friends who have been wondering what I’m trying to do here……… I’m just thinking aloud, thinking aloud for a definition for psychosocial- a definition that is defining enough, and a definition that makes sense, that makes sense to me.
Why is it so important to define psychosocial? Why is it bothering me so much? Not because I don’t know what is psychosocial (comm’n, I told you I am in this field for the last 5 years didn’t I? ;), but because I don’t want to drive any of my friends crazy by giving a long boring lecture when being asked “What EXACTLY do you do for your life?” I have a trillion chat friends. It is difficult to explain things over Yahoo! Or Gtalk chat. It is extremely difficult to explain ‘psychosocial’ on chat.

Following are some very interesting online conversations that happened between me and my friends.

Friend: So tell me about ur work
Rakshi: very interesting. I get to meet lot of people. And I travel a lot for my work.
Friend: where do u work?
Rakshi: I work for an INGO
Friend: ingo?
Rakshi: International Non Govt. Organization
Friend: what is your job profile? (this friend of mine had no clue why I didn’t give a straight answer to his question though I was pretty sure this is what he wanted to know)
Rakshi: Psychosocial capacity building trainer
Friend: do you work for NASA?
Friend: hey r u thr?
Friend: wt’s up?
Rakshi: sorry I was away from the comp
Rakshi: psychosocial is something like…..psycho and social part of people put together.
Friend: hey, I need to leave. c ya tk sd
Rakshi: ok. Take care and have fun

Friend: hey….. u r a psychosocial worker. Very pleased to meet you. I have heard a lot about this sector, but I think I should hear from you as well. Tell me about your work
Rakshi: hi, nice to meet you too. PS is just about a person’s wellbeing. Our role is to make sure, development projects ensure PS wellbeing of persons involved.
Friend: u don’t work with mentally ill people?
Rakshi: I think u r confusing a psychiatrist with a psychosocial worker
Friend: oh I never realized these two were different


Friend: hey Doc, can you treat me?
Rakshi: ????
Friend: u r a doc nedha?
Rakshi: no I’m not. I think u r confusing psychiatrist with psychosocial worker
Friend: what is the difference?
Rakshi: I don’t treat people.
Friend: what do ya do then? Counseling?
Rakshi: no. we just ensure that development projects are sensitive to both the psychological and social needs of people. People tend to look at only one side of development, either psychological or social
Friend: complicated. But u r doing great service. Helping the poor and all
Rakshi: helping the poor?
Friend: don’t u work for an NGO?


Friend: hey miss psycho. Tell me about psychosocial
Rakshi: it is just common sense (I am being called psycho ggggggggrrrrrrr I hate this field)
Friend: hey like that. So u teach people common sense?
Rakshi: not exactly, I don’t teach them. We just facilitate their thinking. Sometimes u need an external person to question about something for u to start thinking in that direction no
Friend: so u make a living by making people think. Why don’t u have some prog for your govt yaarr? They have no sense at all
Rakshi: I’m just waiting for their call (gggggrrrrrrrr….. why am I still talking to him????)
Friend: hey seriously yarr, u can’t do much there. They wont appreciate it. Come here. We need your service. U’ll be safe and happy here.
Rakshi: u mean to say there’s more need for common sense in India than in SL? I can kind of guess it


But this final conversation was something different, an eye opener!!!!!!! Psychosocial is just common sense!!!!!! Wow, wasn’t this the hilarious phrase I was hunting for with much difficulty and loss of sweat and pages and pages of online chat????!!!!!

Rakshi's foot note 1: google or wikipedia ;)

1 comment:

Kirubakar said...

Thats a nice conversation...