AN INTRODUCTION TO MENTAL HEALTH - The Nossal Institute for ...

Case study E
Ahanti is a 25 year old woman who is married and has one daughter and one son. She has
gradually lost all interest in life. Even her children and family don’t make her happy. She
feels tired all the time and has lost the taste for food which she used to love; she can not
sleep at night and has lost weight. Ahanti feels like she is a burden on the family. She feels
embarrassed about her situation and cannot tell anyone. Her mother-in-law complains that
she has become lazy and her husband is frustrated with her and keeps yelling at her and
hitting her. Now Ahanti feels like ending her life, she is so scared by these feelings that she
has come to talk to the health worker.
Case study F
Vijaya is a 28 year old woman whose main complaint is fatigue. She describes “feeling tired,
even after a complete nights sleep”. She feels compelled to take a nap every afternoon. She has
always been an energetic person, and is frustrated with her lack of energy. She also describes
a lot of muscle aches. She visited the doctor recently who performed a physical examination
which revealed no abnormal findings or sleep disorders. Vijaya recently stopped working
because of her symptoms and is increasingly worried that her condition is the reason that she
is unable to get pregnant.
Case Study G
Amal is a 25 year old student who started locking himself in his room. Amal used to be a good
student but failed his last exams. His mother says that he often spends hours staring into space.
Sometimes he mutters to himself as if he were talking to an imaginary person. He was forced
to come to the clinic by his parents. At first he refused to talk to the nurse. After a while he
admitted that he believed that his parents and neighbours were plotting to kill him and that
the devil was interfering with his mind. He said he could hear his neighbours talk about him
and say nasty things outside his door. He said he felt as if he had been possessed, but did not
see why he should come to the clinic since he was not ill.
Case study H
Amar is a 44 year old man who has been ill with a number of physical complains over the past
several months. His main complaints were that his sleep was not good, that he often felt like
vomiting in the morning and that he was generally not feeling well. Amar has recently been to
see the doctor for severe burning pain in the stomach area; he was prescribed more medication
for stomach ulcer. Today he is sweating profusely and his hands are shaking, when you ask him
how he is feeling he sits down and starts to cry. He admits that he is sick because he has been
drinking increasing amounts of alcohol in the previous few months as a way of coping with
stress in the family. However now the drinking itself has become a problem and he cannot pass
even a few hours without having a drink.
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AN INTRODUCTION TO MENTAL HEALTH