Central Government shuts down all psychology and psychiatry departments
The advent of “trauma-informed therapists” has made other mental health disciplines useless: Prime Minister Modi
NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 27: The Government of India ordered the closure of all psychology and psychiatry departments in the country with immediate effect on Wednesday.
Informing about the historic decision in a televised address to the nation at eight o’clock in the evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the advent of “trauma-informed therapy” and its practitioners had made the disciplines of psychology and psychiatry useless and therefore, continuing them would only be a massive waste of taxpayers’ money. He also asked the state governments to issue instructions to their institutions to cease operations in these departments.
The Government has directed the heads of all institutes to send compliance reports by midnight today.
In a statement released by his office after the announcement, Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu termed trauma-informed therapy a glorious treatment for all types of mental disorders, coining the backronym TIT for TAT in the process.
In some circles, the backronym is being interpreted as a rebuke to critics like Ajay Gulzar, who have spoken against the abuse of the term ‘trauma’ and wanted to stop it, but instead, they got their own disciplines shut down by the Government.
Addressing a press conference after the sudden announcement, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Mansukh Mandaviya revealed that the Prime Minister had taken the decision after listening to a podcast by a Cornell University-trained psychotherapist, who reportedly stated that trauma was the root of all mental health problems.
“Some experts disagreed and said it was a display of etiological ignorance, semantic inflation, and unnecessary medicalization of unpleasant but normal human experiences. These people do not realize the magical potential of trauma-informed therapy and just want to save their jobs,” he said.
The Health Minister informed that the Government was bringing amendments to several laws in the upcoming Winter Session of Parliament to implement the decision.
“Earlier, the Government needed to regulate dozens of sub-disciplines in psychiatry and psychology, and therefore, had to make many different laws, but now, since we would only recognize trauma-informed therapists, we need just one law. It would make the process of laying down standards and certifications straightforward and easy to follow. Moreover, in the upcoming Union Budget, the Government would allocate money only for trauma-informed therapy,” he said.
The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority has notified that the insurance companies need to cover only trauma-informed therapy under their plans.
Immediately after the Prime Minister’s address, thousands of newly unemployed psychology professors were seen rushing to their offices to collect their belongings as their access to institutions would be revoked at midnight. Some of them were also seen registering for trauma-informed therapy courses, whose prices had surged multi-fold. Edtech company Byju’s is reportedly in talks to acquire a start-up that provides such training programs online.
Hailing the ground-breaking announcement by the Indian Government, Yale University psychologist Paul Bloom stated, “since publishing the book Against Empathy in 2016, I have been sceptical of the benefits of traditional psychotherapy. If empathy is evil, then most concepts in psychology are. The trauma-informed therapy is the only magic wand to solve humanity’s mental health problems.”
Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker also welcomed the Indian Government’s decision.
“Although violence has declined and we are living in the era of Long Peace, the diagnosis of trauma has gone up. In fact, it is the only accurate clinical diagnosis now as far as mental health is concerned. Hence, I would request American Psychiatric Association to rename DSM as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Trauma in the next edition,” Pinker said.
Several social media therapists have come forth in support of the PM’s decisive stand. “The only shared human experience that is worth exploring is trauma, and to address mental health in an unequal world, we must accept the trauma we hold within ourselves. Unless we heal these traumas, our inner child shall continue to suffer,” said one trauma-informed therapist who runs the popular Instagram page @ProfoundlyTIT.
Disclaimer: In case it was not obvious, it is a piece of satire.
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They had us in the first half, not gonna lie.