Rashi (all names changed) is a 24 yrs old independent woman who hasmade a place for herself in the competitive world and is ever ready to facechallenges at work. However, when she approached me from  UK for online counseling she  was not able to deliver even the routine ofthe tasks and had received ultimatums at the office. She was in a live-inrelationship with a european co-worker and over the period he had gotten tomake her feel inferior and incapable and yet he expected her to do all thehouse hold chores while he would openly criticize her projects at work.

 

Benjamin, aged 18, studying in Germany had pleadingly asked for myhelp to complete his studies as he was not happy away from home in India andwas always counting days for his next holidays to come back and be in hisfamiliar surroundings.

 

Sujata, a 42 yrs old house wife of an IT professional woking inSeattle asked for counseling to understand how to deal with her teenagedaughter who considered herself to be an American while her own Indian roots foundit increasingly difficult to cope up with her daughter’s demand for freedom. Theirevery day tussles were leaving her drained and depressed.

 

All three are living in developed countries with all aminities for agood life, yet the challenges of life strike in different forms.

 

For Rashi, there was a combination of factors like, lack of selfesteem, as all her life she had been driven by external growth + identitycrisis, which her partner was taking full advantage of and making her do allhousehold work telling her that it is the Indian way + Lack of love, being awayfrom the family and only working towards career development had made her veryvulnerable to her needs and hence she was not able to walk out of therelationship. It took a while but with regular therapeutic counseling via Skypeshe was able to overcome her road blocks and could eventually not only make herpartner to leave her apartment but could escalate his gender bias behavior inthe office and finally got an apology and a peaceful encouraging workingenvironment.

 

With Benjamin it was a bit difficult because all he wanted was to comehome. But with regular online chat and sessions on Skype we could identify theunderlying issues of not able to make friends due to his low self- esteem. Theroots of his problems were deep. Since childhood he was constantly targetedfor his dark skin by his grandmother and some children in the school. This wasthe reason that he was not comfortable in approaching the German counselor atschool and could connect very comfortably with fellow Indian. We worked togetherin designing new study methods for him, following up with focus on  understanding the subjects and hiscommunication skills. All this gave him the confidence to slowly participate inclass room interactions which attracted some friends to him. His transition tooksometime but he was a particularly challenging case where Counseling services werevery effective.

 

Sujata’s journey was more towards understanding herself and herbeliefs and faith. We also had to work on her spiritual beliefs and therapeuticcounseling for her relationship with her daughter. She was fast to grasp andimplement and within about 8-9 online sessions via Skype we were able to reacha point where she could make peace with herself and work out new friendlydisciplining strategies to help her daughter from getting lost. Around a year later,her daughter herself entered counseling with me to help her understand herindividuality.

 

Thus Depression and Anxiety can be there in any form. The cause isalways related to the most routine things in our life because they areimportant and close for us. Identifying the need for external help and reachingout from wherever you are in the world is where it all starts.   Remember help with depression and anxiety inthe form of therapeutic counseling via Skype, Facetime, WhatsApp video, etc. isavailable easily at the comfort of your home whether you live in India, UK,USA, Middle eastern countries or any where else on the planet.  

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