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PRE CONFERENCE WORKSHOP 12

Queer Affirmative Practices in Psychiatry and Psychology; an Indian Perspective 

Facilitators

Half Day workshop- Afternoon (1pm To 4pm)

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ALWIN PAUL ALIAS

Dr. TONY LAZAR THOMAS

Psychology,
(NIMHANS)

Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist,
(NIMHANS)
Education : MBBS, MD, DNB, DM

Bio

Alwin Paul he is a PhD Scholar in Clinical Psychology at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) Bengaluru, where he is expanding his expertise to Geriatric Sexuality and Intersectional Geropsychology. He also works as a research scientist for an ICMR-funded project on testing the efficacy of transdiagnostic CBT among older adults at the same institute. Some of his works are titled “Gay from Kolkata”, “Masculinity is a Prison”, “Internalised Homonegativity”, “Coming out; an intersectional process etc. Notable achievements include winning the Best Paper Award at the National Queer Social Work Conference and receiving the Gender Champion accolade.

Bio

Dr. Tony Lazar Thomas, MBBS, MD, DNB, DM, is an accomplished Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, who has previously worked as an Assistant Professor at NIMHANS, Bengaluru. He completed his MD in Psychiatry and DM in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NIMHANS. His training emphasised clinical management, teaching, and collaborative work within multidisciplinary teams, preparing him to handle complex cases across outpatient, inpatient, and emergency settings. Fluent in multiple languages, Dr. Thomas hails from Kerala and has been an integral part of various community outreach and advocacy programs for Queer well-being and children's mental health.

Maximum Participants- 40

Note- Please confirm your eligibility for the workshop before applying.
If not eligible, the fee will not be refunded.

Eligibility- Open to all

Learning:

This workshop includes areas such as the socio-political nature of mental health, understanding sexualities and genders in the Indian socio-political and cultural scenario, depathologizing and reconstructing psychotherapy and psychiatric treatment towards SGM,  exploring own social identities and its influence on the conditioning, Gender binary issues in psychometric assessment and diagnosis and practising Intersectional Queer affirmative lens in therapy and clinical services in Indian context.

Introduction:

Gender and sexuality are human experiences that every individual has without any choice. However, the sociopolitical scenarios and manipulated understandings of these concepts made the Psychiatry and Psychology professionals in history to pathologize it, which resulted in the inhuman treatment of individuals from sexual and gender minority (SGM) communities. Even after depathologization, the legal and social structures of many countries continue to treat it as a mental illness. Though the Indian Penal Code has decriminalised gender and sexual minorities, reported cases of conversion therapy practices raise concerns. Considering the global socio political scenario, mental health professionals need to integrate queer affirmative approaches in their practices for the well-being of minorities.

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