master of arts in applied psychology

In emerging nations like India, there are more people concerned about their mental health. Stress levels are rising in a world that is becoming more globalized. Urbanization, modernization, and globalization processes have increased the pace of change. The rising tensions in daily life are a result of a number of issues, including poverty, migration, industrialization, rising inflation, violence, upwardly mobile lifestyles, rising aspirations, and media exposure. Individuals' resources and daily needs are increasingly at odds with one another. The existing support structures offered by the family, the school, the peer group, and the job are proving to be insufficient to handle the surging plethora of demands, expectations, roles, and tasks placed on the individual's shoulders, even while the loads are growing on a daily basis.

According to the Mental Health Survey (2015–16), the treatment gap for various mental diseases ranged from 70 to 92%. According to anecdotal sources, India has between 3,500 and 5,000 psychiatrists, which equates to one psychiatrist for every 200,000 to 300,000 people. About 320 psychiatrists, 50 clinical psychologists, and 185 mental health nurses are annually produced by the training infrastructure that is now in place. One of the main obstacles to the development of mental health care in India is the lack of educated and monitored services and professionals. The need for educating mental health practitioners who can effectively address the needs of communities is made abundantly evident by this.

The M.A. in Counseling program was initially introduced in 2009 by the School of Human Ecology (SHE), part of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, in response to the nation's lack of qualified professionals to deliver mental health services. Since then, the School of Human Ecology has created a single master's program with the name MA Applied Psychology (Clinical and Counselling Practice) based on ongoing evaluation, student feedback, and input from the field.

The planned M.A. in Applied Psychology (Clinical and Counseling Practice) course's scope includes the creation of interventions with the goals of improving person-environment fit, fostering resilience for successful coping, and boosting well-being and Quality of Life. As outlined in the Boulder Model for clinical psychology training (Frank, 1984), the program will be centered on the development of practitioners with a strong research foundation as scientist-practitioners. However, a contextual and developmental perspective will guide the course content and methodology. The purpose of training will be to raise people's understanding of diversity and the sociocultural circumstances in which they live.

The M.A. in Applied Psychology's specific objective is to prepare students for the assessment and intervention of developmental, mental health, and issue-based problems with an emphasis on primary preventive and therapeutic approaches. The current M.A. program aims to increase students' self-awareness and provide them with a solid theoretical foundation from which to develop the abilities they will need to put those theories into practice through fieldwork and internships.The goal is to seamlessly combine theory and practice. The improvement of pupils' research skills is also a priority. The practice component includes supervision, which enables students to gain from criticism given by qualified experts in the field.