Department Activities

World Mental Health Day Observance
The World Health Organization has declared October 10th as the World Mental Health Day. The Department of Psychology, Kristu Jayanti College observed World Mental Health Day to create awareness among the students regarding the need for having Positive Mental Health. The observance started with displaying placards with messages on the positivity of life.

The Department of Psychology PG students prepared and presented a dance drama at St. Chavara Square. The dance drama conveyed the importance of Mental Health and the Role of Psychologists in fostering mental health and wellbeing with the message “We Listen, We Care”. The drama beautifully showcased the life of a person with low self-esteem who overcame his struggles with the help of counselling and social support. The program was witnessed by Rev. Fr. Josekutty PD, Principal, Kristu Jayanti College; Rev. Dr. Augustine George, Vice-Principal, Kristu Jayanti College; Rev. Fr. Emmanuel PJ, Director, Kristu Jayanti College of Law; Faculty members, students, and delegates. The program concluded with the word of appreciation and encouragement by Rev. Dr. Augustine George who emphasized the relevance and importance of maintaining and promoting mental health at various levels.

Stimuli 2K19
Department of Psychology, Kristu Jayanti College organized the fifth National level inter-collegiate fest ‘Stimuli 2k19’ with the theme ‘Embracing Inclusiveness’ on 18th September 2019.

Dr. Binoy V. V, Assistant Professor, Animal Behavior and Cognition Consciousness Studies at the School of Natural Sciences and Engineering, was the chief guest for the day. He spoke how inclusion is essential for a diverse system. “If you need harmony, it should have inclusion; if you need inclusion, it should start with the mind”, said Dr. Binoy V.V. He ended his interactive talk by reminding the audience to include “thinking machines” and to be prepared to compete with them as well. Rev. Fr. Josekutty P D, Principal, Kristu Jayanti College, in his presidential address spoke about the importance of accepting all aspects of the society to live in harmony with others.

The various events started off simultaneously in different venues with participation from 11 colleges across the country with 151 participants. The events of the fest included a variety of on-stage and off-stage events such as Charisma, Snapshot, Hours Thema, Psychomime, Billboard, Brainstorm, Persona and Silver screen.

During the valedictory function, Rev. Dr. Augustine George delivered the Valedictory address where he spoke about hard work, winning attitude and success. He also congratulated the participants for their active involvement in the fest. The results for various events were announced, with enthusiastic applause and encouragement from the audience.

Christ (deemed to be university), Business Studies and Social Sciences, Bannerghatta Campus, Bangalore, bagged the overall trophy and the runner-up trophy was won by CMR University, Bangalore.

Intra- Collegiate Psychology fest Cognizance 2019
The 8th Annual Intra-collegiate psychology fest was organized by the Department of Psychology on 26th August 2019 from 9:00 am to 5:30 pm to inculcate the application of different streams of psychology through various extra-curricular activities. Every year this fest is conducted by the students who are pursuing their post-graduation in Psychology for the undergraduate students of psychology. The theme for this year’s fest was “Embracing Inclusiveness”, making the students understand the need for accepting every aspect of our society.

Cognizance 2019 Was inaugurated by the Chief Guest Dr. Jini K. Gopinath, Chief Consultant, Clinical Psychologist at Mind Matters and former Mumbai Indians Performance Coach. In his inaugural address, Dr. Jini K. Gopinath spoke about the amendment made by the Government of India to restructure the disability segment and to introduce “inclusive” education for special kids so that they feel they are as normal as the rest. Secondly, he spoke about the incidence rates of cardiovascular disorders based on a study by Narayana Hrudayalaya and St. John’s Hospital, Bangalore, which concluded that the old scales that were used earlier does not apply to the current generation as the primary factor that contributed to CVD was found to be stress. Lastly, he put forth the importance of personal therapy for Psychology students and practitioners to protect one from the emotional burnout.

A total of 481 undergraduate students participated in the event. The participants were put into 10 different teams consisting of the first, second and third-year students, each team was named after an Indian Psychologist who contributed immensely in different fields of psychology. These teams participated in over 8 different- on stage and off stage competitions such as -

The valedictory session was chaired by Rev. Fr. Lijo P Thomas, Financial Administrator, who appreciated the department for the successful conduct of the event and also congratulated the participants and winners for their active participation. The event ended with the prize distribution. Cognizance 2019 provided the students with the platform to showcase their talents and organizing skills. The winners were overwhelmed as they were awarded with trophies and certificates for their excellent performance.

2 day Workshop on Cognitive behaviour Therapy
Day 1:
CBT, short for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is one of the most advance therapies, used to treat a wide range of Mental Illnesses, CBT is a therapeutic approach that revolves around emotional and behavioural disturbances in an individual by working with their Physical-Sensory, Cognitive and Behavioural responses to both internal and external events.

The Cognitive Behaviour Therapy workshop conducted by the Department of Psychology was held on the 26th of July, 2019. The enriching workshop was headed by resource person Dr. M. Manjula, Professor and Mrs. Sayma Jameel, PhD Research scholar, NIMHANS. Bangalore.

This workshop on CBT, was an enlightening one where it helped the students to widen their spectrum of knowledge about Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. Sixty eight final year Post Graduate students from the Department of Psychology had the opportunity to be a part of this delightful workshop. Dr. M. Manjula, a cheerful resource person, led the students from the basic theoretical concepts of CBT through the different models used for the formulation of a case.

Day 2
The second day of the workshop the students were divided into 3 batches, Clinical , Industrial and Counselling. The focus and aim of the sessions were to throw more light on the practical structure of CBT through various activities and case studies. The Sessions were facilitated in different venues by Dr. Rema M.K., Mr. Vigranth Bapu and Ms. Soumya Simon for clinical, industrial and counselling students respectively.

The sessions began with a short recap of the previous day, after which the students were given an exercise where they had to appropriately identify and classify thoughts, feelings and physical sensations.

Three case studies were given to each group and they were asked to find the precipitating factors, predisposing factors and protective factors from the given case study. After that the flow chart for CBT structure was followed to find the core beliefs, assumptions, triggering situation, problems which included thoughts, emotions, behaviours and physical sensations. Each group was given time to discuss among themselves. After that the facilitator provided a platform for every group to share their views on the case studies.

“Second day gave us much learning and it was joyful to do the activities. Practical knowledge gave the students much deeper understanding on how we build core beliefs and how it effects our assumptions that are activated by triggering situations. I take this opportunity to thank the facilitators for all the support and the department for conducting the workshop which gave us more insight on the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.”-Lydia John, 2nd year M.Sc. Psychological Counselling.