Rev. Fr. George Ehusani, the Executive Director, Lux Terra Leadership Foundation, has urged the government to pay attention to mental health by providing facilities to address cases.

He made the call on Wednesday in Abuja at the certificate award ceremony of graduates of Psycho-Trauma Healing Skills Training for professionals and volunteers.

The short course was organised by the foundation in collaboration with the Psychology Department of Nasarawa State University, Keffi.

According to the cleric, mental health awareness, even among the educated segment of the population is very low.

He added that “generally across the country, Nigerians and the government are yet to gain sufficient awareness that mental healthcare needs to be provided for in the same way we provide for physical healthcare.

“Until a disturbed person degenerates into a full-blown psychiatric case, requiring to be detained in a psychiatric hospital, we often do not recognise that there is a health challenge that needs urgent attention.

“Until people strip and parade the streets naked, we often do not give their mental issues any serious attention.

“We  often tell ourselves that we do not have mental illness in our families, so even when we notice that a relationship is disturbed, we blame it on demons and go from one man of God to the other seeking deliverance of the sick family member.”

He said that in many such cases, what the suffering person required was psychological care and support such as trauma counselling, particularly for persons who had experienced or witnessed tragic events.

He decried a situation where thousands had graduated with degrees in psychology but were not engaged in counselling just as the country lacked well trained and practising specialist trauma counsellors.

He explained that “the foundation initiated the programme on account of the escalating violence across the country and an increase in substance abuse, especially among youths, including secondary and tertiary school students.”

The clergyman said that vices such as family dysfunction, marital breakdown and divorce, were capable of causing deep emotional wounds that required psychological support.

He noted that “at Lux Terra Leadership Foundation, we have long seen the need for professionals and volunteers to be trained in trauma healing to enable them to support affected persons better and to facilitate their healing.”

The Vice-Chancellor of Nasarawa State University, Prof. Suleiman Muhammed, said it was imperative to scale up training on psycho-trauma healing so as to produce more counsellors.

The vice-chancellor, who was represented by Mr Emmanuel Alhassan, the Head of the institution’s Department of Psychology, urged the graduates to put the skills they had acquired to judicious use and not wait for paid employment.

He said, “you can begin with counselling family members, friends and neighbours because if you wait for government or NGO jobs, they may never come.”

Some of the graduates expressed appreciation, saying it was a privilege to be part of the course.

In his testimony, Mr Ati Timothy, said that he came for the training to learn to be a healer but he ended up being healed himself.