Indian mental concepts: Looking forward

Abstract

Byline: T. Sathyanarayana Rao, L. Sam. Manickam, Roy. Kallivayalil Only he who can see the invisible, can do the impossible - Frank Gomes. The Beginning When we envisaged this project 2 years ago, we were clear as to what we intended to do. However, as we moved along we realized its complexities as aired by some of the eminent members of the psychiatry community. Though there were differences of opinion among the editorial team, we felt that we have to make a beginning. Over the years of practice of psychiatry in India, we realized that in order to provide effective care of the persons and families with mental disorders, we need to be innovative and inclusive of the diverse cultural setting which we hail from. Therefore, the real art of psychiatry depends on how well one integrates the diversity in one's practice. When we announced this initiative, several eyebrows were raised as to where we are heading to. Though we are not completely content with what we have achieved, but we could see the end of the tunnel after 2 years of incubation. We are hoping that there will be more psychiatrists who would dare to tread the path that we are laying, though it is not easy. The Impetus The models that we have are the steps taken by some of the pioneers in psychiatry who made solo ventures during their times and dared to move forward from the scientific tradition in which we are trained. Concepts that were considered alien to medicine and psychiatry were keenly searched and brought under the fabric of science. One of the treatises that was left unnoticed is ' The Yoga Sutras ' written by Girindrasekhar Bose. [sup][1] Efforts by Vahia, [sup][2] on bringing in Yogic concepts into the main stream has helped develop the branch of Yoga into a wider perspective and now a separate journal of Yoga is being published from India. Guru-Chela relationship that was proposed by Neki [sup][2] made researchers re-look at the doctor-patient and teacher-student relationship in the Asian cultural context. [sup][3] The concept of mind that is referred to in different Indian philosophical schools of thought intrigues many. [sup][4],[5],[6] The Current Effort From the time we launched this project two years ago, we have received numerous articles and many have shown interest to write. Out of the articles that we received, the editorial team has accepted almost half of the submitted articles for publication in this current volume. This decision was based on the pattern and flow of the content, relevance, completeness, and congruity with the basic Indian mental concepts as envisaged for this project. The very important determinant was its application to behavioral sciences, in general and psychiatric practice, in particular. Above all, space constraint had a significant role in the final outcome.. We would like to interact with those authors in future and provide mentorship to the young researchers as well. Some of the authors have considered Indian thoughts, without referring to the Indian treatise but have solely relied on authors from abroad that were available in Google search. However, there are several researchers in India, who have worked on different concepts but those may be in the libraries of different institutions in India or published in journals that are not yet accessible through the net search. Till Indian of Psychiatry was available online and was indexed in PubMed, a lot of Indian research in psychiatry also went unnoticed by the International Community of Psychiatrists. Therefore, we urge those who are interested in the Indian mental concepts to unearth the unpublished doctoral and master level thesis as well as those articles that are published in several Indian journals, including the Journal of Indian Psychology and to scan through the comprehensive list of articles that are available in the ICSSR publication. [sup][7] Some Thoughts The current issue is being brought out as a first volume/supplementary and we look forward to your valuable suggestions, creative and critical comments, and feedback on this initiative, which would help us to develop a guideline for the new authors to explore the Indian mental concepts. …