By Evaris Pala Slong

This text was written during instructor Taco Hidde Bakker’s Fall 2021 Media Writing course at Webster University Leiden Campus.

Mental health is an often discussed topic today as compared to decades ago. The following interview with a recent Webster graduate in psychology will discuss how mental health amongst the younger generation is deteriorating during the pandemic. The field of psychology is changing and what the future of it will look like is one of the main points of interest that will be highlighted in the conversation.

Omar El Kurdi is a young therapist from Lebanon who is passionate about psychology and mindfulness practices. Besides psychology, Omar loves skating, trying out spicy food, and “experimenting with alternative healing methods such as breathing techniques and meditations.”

Ever since the pandemic, people have been facing many different mental health problems while going into therapy can be a challenge. Omar, who graduated during the pandemic and started his own practice a year after, has first-hand experience with clients whose overall mental health has been affected by the current pandemic.

Since we are all more dependent on our digital screens, Omar had first-hand experience with exploring the advantages and disadvantages of online therapy sessions. While online sessions might prove to be a solution for those who tend to shy away to opt for therapy, therapists face new challenges behind the screens.

What made you switch from the field of business to psychology? What is your specialization?

I chose psychology because my energy was often directed towards people from early on: how they think, feel, and behave, and how this relates to their subconscious mind. Taking elective courses in psychology as a business student allowed me to finally put words to the observations I was continuously making in family and social settings. I found myself understanding psychological concepts on an innate level and found a great liking to them. Hence, I decided to continue my studies in psychology. My specialty is the field of mental health counseling. My dream was always to help people become better versions of themselves or, in other words, to help them realize their full potential.

What is your experience with clients, especially during the pandemic? Could you talk about cultural considerations you’ve encountered when working with a client?

Since I started practicing as the pandemic began, I have only been able to work online with my clients. It’s difficult for me to tell the difference in having an in-person experience since I have no reference point, but I can definitely say that there is a lack of energy in online counseling compared to in-person sessions. Nevertheless, the work has been incredibly useful to my clients, and I have learned a lot about counseling in general through my online practice. Mental health has been deteriorating during the past years due to lack of social contact, but there is also increasing awareness for psychology in general. When more time is spent alone in our homes, we have more space for reflection. Most of my clients expressed a newfound knowledge of their mental difficulty during the pandemic, which proved to be helpful because it allows them to connect deeper within themselves through therapy and self-work.

While remaining open to different cultures is a must, I’m sure that many therapists have different cultural considerations depending on where they come from. As I come from a culture that is known to be warm and open, working with clients that aren’t used to that has proven to be difficult. Compromising with certain clients is necessary to build a mutual understanding and trusting relationship. However, over-compromising is always a problem which is why we have to decide as counselors if we should keep clients or refer them to other counselors that may be a better fit.

The notion of hope is not clearly represented in the field of psychology. Famous novelist John Green portrays hope in his characters, who often suffer from mental health issues, as the main drive for self-help. In his novel Turtles All the Way Down he writes, "There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn't." Basically, this is a message to people that when you suffer from mental health issues, your brain seems to work against you. So, I am curious as to how to use the notion of hope when talking to clients and what “hope” means for you in the face of mental health?

I think that hope is necessary by any means to move forward. In reference to lessons in philosophy, humans are driven by their will to move forward and grow, and I think these two concepts go hand in hand. Without hope, our will has no direction, and we may feel lost in a world without meaning. It’s common for clients to go to therapy with deep feelings of hopelessness and depression. Therapy can help these clients understand themselves, which helps with the awakening of hope again. Through self-understanding, a direction to strive towards something becomes more effortless, our values become clearer in a therapeutic alliance. I think hope is the foundation from which any mental or spiritual healing can occur in talk therapy.

What does the future of psychology look like in your opinion?

Psychology has been evolving and branching out into different forms of psychotherapy and psychological research. We understand the connection between neuroscience and psychology more and more every day. Talking about neurotransmitters in the brain and how they affect us on a day-to-day basis has been normalized, and even commercialized. Mental health therapy isn’t only popular in clinical cases, as more people with rather less serious difficulties have found therapy to make a big difference to their well-being. Stigma on mental health has been decreasing and as more work has gone digital, speaking about your mental health from the comfort of your own home has been normalized. The future of psychology is going to be a continuous expansion into new realms of the mind through science, along with a deeper connection to conscious living across society.

Which mental disorder is diagnosed more often today, as compared to ten years ago?

Reports of congruent depression are more common now than in the past. Clinical depression is a result of a chemical imbalance in the brain and can be treated through medication. Congruent depression, on the other hand, happens when an individual is depressed due to life’s current circumstances. If I am not happy with certain things in my life such as relationships, career, or spiritual pursuits, to the extent where I become depressed, my depression would be appropriate to life circumstances. Whereas if everything in my life was the way I wanted it to be, but I would feel depressed, this would qualify as clinical depression. People often seek help to change their life circumstances in order to feel less depressed, which is why nowadays life coaches are quite popular. In the same way, psychotherapy can help individuals understand what goes currently wrong in their life and help them find strategies to solve these issues.

Since you mentioned that most of your practice has been online so far, do you see yourself as an online therapist in the future? If not, how would you integrate both online and offline therapy in your practice?

Yes, I see myself working online in the future. As I have mentioned, online therapy seemed to be highly beneficial to many of my clients, despite my limited experience, and I can see it being beneficial to many more. Although the energy may not be as strong as in in-person sessions, there are perks to doing sessions online, such as doing it from the comfort of our home. Feeling a sense of comfort in sessions as a client is vital for opening up, especially for someone doing it for the first time. In case online sessions are not beneficial to the clients, I would then opt for in-person sessions whenever it is possible or convenient. There may be certain parts of therapy, such as high-intensity sessions with regards to trauma and processing difficult emotions, where being with a therapist in person makes a big difference. In conclusion, I would be okay with working both online and in-person in the future, and I would do my best to explain the scope of working online and the limitations, while still maintaining its benefits.

Mental Health and the Pandemic– The Future of Psychology

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