Mr. Baijesh Ramesh, Psychotherapist, Chetna Hospital gave a talk on A Mind Body Behaviour and Substance Use – An Encounter with Hungry Ghosts! as part of Human Values-II course on 1 April.

Substance abuse/addiction cannot be treated as a discrete phenomenon confined to an unfortunate or weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs throughout (and perhaps underpins) our society. It is not just a medical “condition” distinct from the lives it affects, rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional, and neurological development, brain chemistry, and the drugs (and behaviors) of addiction. Simplifying the understanding on substance use, abuse, addiction and a wide array of brain and addiction research findings from around the globe, the talk also focuses on compassionate self-understanding as the first key to healing and wellness.

Baijesh Ramesh is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and researcher based in Hyderabad. He is a Clinical Psychologist and Mental Health Counselor with the prestigious Minerva Institute, San Francisco (U.S.A). He is a consultant for Chetana Hospital, Hyderabad, The Hyderabad Academy of Psychology, Silver Oak Health, Bengaluru and various other organizations. In the past, he served in the capacity of the Assistant Professor at the Central University of Karnataka and currently is a resource person to many academic institutions.

Baijesh is a mindfulness practitioner and guide, and he uses mindfulness-based interventions and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) in his clinical practice extensively. He is an accredited trainer and practitioner of Solution Focused Approaches (SFA) with the Association for Solution Focused Approaches and Research. Apart from clinical practice and training, he conducts workshops, does independent research and provides supervision for clinical psychologists and counselors. He has published scientific articles in reputed national and international journals and has written chapters in books. He has contributed to contextualizing Solution Focused Approaches and Mindfulness-Based Interventions to the Indian context, for the treatment of depression, anxiety disorders and wellness in the organizational settings.