Psychology Spa, Palestine

Project name: Psychology Spa

Project location: The project is located in Bethlehem, Palestine.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PsychologySpa/

Project description:

Deep understanding of human psychology is essential to have a better understanding of how the mind works, improve human performance, and help people make healthy lifestyle choices. Psychology has an important role in helping people to overcome their emotional or psychological difficulties and helping them to improve their lives. Psychological needs of human beings are just as important as the physical basic needs. Despite the importance of psychological needs, there are still stigmas within many developing countries, Palestine included, which view symptoms of mental illness as threatening and disagreeable. People feel uncomfortable to talk about their psychological distress in public. Due to this psychopathology stigma, emotional or psychological distress is usually presented by patients in the form of physical symptoms, such as headaches, colic and back pain (Afana, Qouta, & El Sarraj, 2004), suggesting that mental illness is being significantly under-reported. Hence, changing this stigma and helping people to deal with their psychological distress is necessary within the Palestinian community.

For decades the West Bank has suffered from political, social and economic strife. Palestinians have been exposed to a series of traumatic events, such as imprisonment, torture, humiliation, human rights violations, house demolitions, land confiscation, restriction of movement, unemployment, and under-employment. This has created a very large group of people who suffer from various emotional and psychological traumas. Mental illness is considered one of the largest and least acknowledged health problems in Palestine (Afana, Qouta, & El Sarraj, 2004). Dealing with the emotional and psychological needs are equally primary to the physical survival needs. People are aware of the importance of mental and psychological health as part of the total health care picture, yet seeking counselling remains difficult to accept due to the social stigma. Mental health service providers in Palestine usually offer support, rehabilitation, and counselling services for people dealing with psychological problems. Mainly, these organizations focus on counselling and treating the disorders rather than arming people with required knowledge to realize the importance of psychological needs to be able to seek treatment. In most cases, these organizations are the ones who approach people to offer help, and in many other cases people ignore their psychological distress for a long period of time and only seek help when they reach advanced stages of the disorder. Reaching a stage where dealing with the psychological need as a natural and essential need requires raising awareness of the importance of psychology in the first place. However, little attention is given to raising awareness of psychology and changing attitudes towards mental health.

Even now, psychology remains a taboo topic and the stigma about people who are dealing with mental and psychological issues still prevails. Furthermore, psychological courses that are given in existing organizations and universities mostly target social workers or psychologists. Knowledge of psychology is limited to those who have studied social work or psychology, and thus, other people from different academic backgrounds are not given the opportunity to learn about psychology. Therefore, raising awareness of psychology in the Bethlehem Governorate and other areas of Palestine is necessary to give people the chance to learn more about how the body and mind work together. This knowledge can help people with decision-making, dealing with or recovering from emotional, mental and physical trauma or stress, achieving goals, living effectively, and enhancing their quality of life.

According to Daniel Goldstein, “Psychology, unlike chemistry, unlike algebra, unlike literature, is an owner's manual for your own mind. It's a guide to life. What could be more important than grounding young people in the scientific information that they need to live happy, healthy, productive lives? To have good relationships?” This quote shows the significance of the discipline of psychology by talking about how psychology is different from other specialties, as it is like an owner’s manual to what goes on in our head. Psychology helps us understand our mind and through understanding this we are given the ability to understand how to be healthier physically and psychologically.

The idea of the psychology spa is inspired from the literary salon in the 18th century, where intellectuals gathered to debate and inspire each other. It was a friendly, comfortable place where intellectuals had to study a particular work of literature, either as a single intensive session or longer weekly series of meetings. This experience was described as “a spa for the mind.” Hence, the proposed Psychology Spa (PS) is a meeting place where individuals and groups gather to learn about psychology, share knowledge, and discuss issues that are harder to bring up in casual conversation. This spa will have a non-traditional setting (colorful place, green pots, and specially designed chairs). Participants will not sit behind desks and be lectured. Participants will have an active role in the learning process (activities, movie nights). PS is a different place where people feel proud to be part of and not scared or ashamed to enter it.
This project of the PS is the first in Palestine where individuals and groups can meet to learn, discuss, share, collaborate, and seek ways to gain psychological knowledge. Each individual will be provided with the opportunity to deepen their understanding of psychology and change stereotypes about psychologists. As a start-up for the evening sessions/discussions, several courses consisting of different topics will be designed and prepared before the opening of the spa. These sessions will provide an overview of the basic concepts in psychology, core knowledge within the discipline of psychology and many other topics that concern every single one of us. Topics might include introduction to psychology, mental health, psychosomatic disorders, learning and memory, depression, stress and anxiety, social influence, prejudices, eating disorders, and personality, etc. Knowledge and life skills will be provided to help people with decision-making, dealing with stress, living effectively, and enhancing quality of life
PS is suitable for everyone who has general interest in psychology and has not had the opportunity to learn about it. PS will focus on targeting and reaching out youth and other marginalized communities in Palestine. The importance of psychology and mental health will be raised in a stigma free place. PS is an oasis for gatherings designed to provide discussions on topics that touch the lives of a large segment of people in a relaxed setting. PS might include discussions about certain types of psychological disorders, but these discussions are not designed as treatment for any disorder. The discussions will be led by the founder of the PS and other Palestinian and international professionals. Social media (see Facebook page: PsychologySpa) will be used to break the wall between people and mental health by highlighting PS activities and posting other short videos providing useful life tips in a simple creative way.

Goal and purpose of the project:

Goal: To raise awareness of Psychology and mental health through psycho-education in a stigma free place.
Purpose: To achieve a social transformation regarding mental health by fighting mental health related stigma.

Motivation of the applicant / applicant team:

My motivation is to break the wall between people and mental health, raise awareness of the importance of psychological needs and fight mental health stigma. I believe that grounding people, especially youth, with required knowledge and life skills for decision-making, dealing with stress, living effectively, etc is the first step for enhancing their quality of life.
 

Use of prize money:

Money will be used to cover expenses of providing weekly series of discussion panels/ meetings that will provide various awareness group sessions of several topics in psychology that concern every single one of us. Different age groups will be targeted, yet focusing on youth in our community. This is because we believe that youth are the leaders of the future and caring about youth means caring about the whole community. Also, to use money to provide access to information related to psychology through a library containing books and articles in both Arabic and English covering various topics of psychology. People can come in to read more about psychology and have a warm conversation about different psychological topics in a warm and comfortable atmosphere. Moreover, provide a 4 week training program for the volunteers (10-15 undergraduate students) that covers basic psychology information and general knowledge of mental health problems in order to serve as group facilitators for various discussion panels. Last but not least, money will be used to work on a different setting of Psychology Spa as this place will be a unique, relaxed and also having a non traditional setting. It will be colorful, including plants, art pieces and specially designed chairs.