Deji Osasona, the Managing Director and Principal Consultant at Winbox Centre, has expressed worries over the rising trauma cases in Nigeria, leading to the “Healing Room” initiative, a program aimed at actively addressing and managing trauma cases across the country.
Osasona made this known in a statement made available to BusinessDay after hosting an event tagged HealingFest, a free Trauma Therapy Conference themed ‘From Scars to Stars.”
According to the MD, this development is coming at a time when data revealed that over 80 per cent of Nigerians experience or witness one form of trauma ranging from betrayal to invalidations, poverty, sexual abuse, physical abuse and verbal abuse among others.
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He said: “The healing fest is a trauma therapy conference designed to address three major pillars of living in our society that have been affected by trauma, such as mental health, marital relationship and marketplace success data reveals that about 80 per cent of Nigerians experience or witness one form of trauma or another.
“These are different forms of adversities that one way or the other would have traumatised us. The problem with trauma is this. When you experience this adversity, there is a way you learn to cope against these adversities to survive. A lot of people are not aware of this, but they are rather blaming people and the economy and a lot of people are not productive in their businesses.
“Their businesses are not growing and they are blaming their employers or employees they are blaming their spouse and a lot of people have mental issues, but they are blaming demons, but really, it has to do with trauma in our life because of the coping mechanism we have developed to this trauma and it turns to a behavioural pattern.”
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According to him, the first reason for the programme and the conference is to sensitise people on how to gain awareness of how trauma is affecting us in different areas of our lives.
Speaking on the healing room initiative, Osasona said: “We are launching a programme called the healing room which would be announced on radio, YouTube and the essence is for people who need therapy but cannot afford it.
“We are going to have a partnership with a radio station and hopefully, we will get sponsorship. It will be aired so that people can learn from it at no cost to you. So you are availing yourself to go to therapy at no cost to you.
“So we thought of it and said if most people that need therapy cannot afford it, then why are we here, so we said let us put a programme together that will be free for people to come together and let us even kickstart the journey to healing by helping them gain awareness and understanding on how they can break the cycle.”
In addition, he revealed that the most crucial finding recorded by the Centre is that over 90 per cent of people who need therapy do not show up for therapy because it is costly and they cannot afford it.
“It is time to heal psychologically and unlearn these behavioural patterns. While this is possible on an individual level without professional help, many would however require it in the form of therapy to kickstart their healing journey. Unfortunately, therapy is costly in this society, and many that need it cannot afford it.”
