Manasrang

Mental health and Expressive art have a close link. The positive impact of the art on the mental health and its potential usefulness in catalysing recovery process is not well utilised in the mainstream mental health-related interventions.

Manasrang (Colour of Mind) program has two important objectives:

  • To integrate various forms of expressive arts in the group based psychosocial interventions
  • Use the various forms of locally prevalent expressive art as a primary strategy in community mental health activities.

Manasrang was developed by renowned Marathi Theatre artist and director Mr. Atul Pethe and Mr. Raju Inamdar along with the Parivartan team. The activities of Manasrang are driven by the use of various forms of expressive arts like songs, drama, paintings, drawings, dance, puppetry and picture storytelling. The content of the group is driven by three principles:

  1. Learning about illness and ways to cope with it
  2. Mobilising support to patient and family members
  3. Exploring options for meaningful reintegration in the community

Over time, patients have shown significant improvements in self-care, daily living and social skills, self-esteem and confidence levels. Several patients have gained employment after years of being at home, many others have sustained their jobs for more than a year and some have managed to leave the house after years of being unable to do so. Families too have noticed improvements in self-care, family relationships and contribution to household chores.

Besides, the Manasrang group has done several stage performances on important days like World Schizophrenia Day and World Mental Health Day. Here, patients and caregivers presented drama, songs and mimicry. This has received wide media coverage and public interest.

Other than its therapeutic role for patients and their role as a support group for patients and caregivers, Manasrang is also useful as a method for effective community engagement to create awareness about mental illnesses and their treatment thus promoting help-seeking as well. The Manasrang method of communication is well received and culturally acceptable. Manasrang methods have also been used in training of mental health frontline workers in enabling them to refine their communication skills.

Empowering service users to life with dignity

Getting back to work is the very part of recovery for any person suffering from mental health problems. Parivartan has put in systematic efforts to develop a range of work options for patients suffering from mental health problems especially with those who have persistent disabilities.The range of options we offer to patients include: Collective work options at the day centre …

Making Community Based Mental Health a reality

Janmanswasthaya program (JMSP) of Parivartan trust aims at developing a model of community-based mental health care for six priority mental health disorders namely Severe Mental Disorders (Schizophrenia and Mood disorders), Common Mental disorders (Depression and anxiety), Epilepsy, Alcohol use disorder, geriatric mental health problems and suicide prevention. In the Phase one of the program, Parivartan has worked with seven organisations spread …