Detangle by Kinjal
Detangle is a podcast created by health psychologist and writer, Dr Kinjal Goyal. Each episode is a conversation with an expert in their field, as they dive deep into their journerys and experiences. The conversations are full of insight and a great way to hear, first hand, how the mind plays a pivotal role in almost everything that we do. The guests range from doctors, to writers, to those in entertainment and of course, those from mental health fields.
Detangle by Kinjal
Detangle with Dr. Suparna Telang
What if understanding the psychological and physical intricacies of women's sexual health could change your life? In our latest episode, we sit down with the illustrious Dr. Suparna Telang, a veteran psychiatrist with over three decades of profound experience. From her transition from a family physician to becoming a trailblazer in sexual medicine and psychiatry, Dr. Telang opens up about the hurdles she overcame in a male-dominated field and her impactful work with mentally handicapped individuals. This episode brings forward the often-ignored intersection between psychological and physical health, highlighting the significant but overlooked issue of guilt in women’s sexual health.
Join us as we talk about sexuality and guilt among adolescents and married women. The pressures of societal expectations and the competitive drive that shape young people's sexual behaviors are scrutinized, as well as the unique challenges married women face in embracing their sexual preferences. Through candid anecdotes and practical advice, Dr. Telang and I discuss the vital roles of communication and self-awareness in overcoming these feelings of guilt. Dr Telang also shares her personal journey, reflecting on the indispensable support from her family that empowered her to compartmentalize emotions and maintain professional boundaries.
Finally, we touch on essential self-care strategies to maintain mental health amidst the digital age's relentless pace. From the pitfalls of excessive social media use to the irreplaceable value of human connection over AI in counseling, we provide actionable tips for managing mental well-being. For women in their 40s, we offer guidance on establishing disciplined routines to mitigate brain fog and confusion. This episode culminates in advocating for open dialogues on taboo topics like sexual health and psychiatry, fostering a more informed and healthier society. Don't miss this enlightening conversation that promises to equip you with invaluable insights and practical advice.
Welcome to Detangle, where we untangle the complexities of life one conversation at a time. I'm your host, dr Kinjal Goel, a psychologist and a writer. Welcome, dr Suparna Telang. I'm so happy to have you with me today. Doc, let's get the audience a little acquainted with you before we begin. For me, you're a psychiatrist with more experience than I have circles around the sun. Tell us about your qualifications, please.
Speaker 2:Thank you, kinchal, I'm so happy being here with you today, and I think as a psychiatrist I started my career about 32 years ago, but I have done much more before that. I have done much more before that. It's like for about. I graduated in 70, then till almost 16 years I was a family physician and a mother. In between that I tried my post-graduation and doing gynecology, but could not complete my DGO because of my ill health. I had a pre-pregnancy symptoms and so I could not complete that. Anyways, that hit my urge to continue studying never ended.
Speaker 2:During that time I used to work with mentally handicapped children and adults and adolescents and realized that the need for sexual consultation to them and their parents was very important. I would say that they needed sex education, because education is not a word, what we could tell them, but it was more of a practical training that they needed to understand their own sexuality and behavior. So while doing all that, a bug bit me and I decided that I must do something for human sexuality, and thus I went to Stanford to study, but then I realized that there also it was more of a theoretical Then Dr Rex, who was that time dean of physiology. So Professor Rex guided me, saying that go back to India, work with the physiology department and study. All this is a physiological subject. So I came back.
Speaker 2:My guide then was Dr Gaderiwal, who was a dean of JJ Medical, and then I completed my PhD in 1989-90. Started practicing as a sexual medicine person, practicing as a sexual medicine person. At the same time, the realization was always there that I wanted to do psychiatry, maybe because I grew up in a large family and maybe in a rural area, seeing people around and different natures of the people. I was always interested in knowing the psychology of people and that's how my interest in social psychiatry also grew up and I decided to get admission into college again to study psychiatry. Well, I completed psychiatry with my eldest son-in-law doing his MSc and D. We both went to college together.
Speaker 1:Wow, this is straight out of the movies, isn't it?
Speaker 2:So it was very interesting to complete. And then now I practice psychiatry and sexual medicine both.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm inspired to begin with, but I have so many questions that I'm looking forward to ask you anyway, so let's get into the conversation. Doc, given that we believe that women have a higher incidence of mental health issues, was it surprising to find that the entire field was saturated with male psychiatrists when you started off?
Speaker 2:Could be two reasons. In those days most of the specializations other than gynecology were taken up by male doctors, and same thing happened with psychiatry and was not a very popular field to enter into. So people used to tease each other that kuch nahi mila to psychiatry liya, that kuch nahin mila to psychiatry liya. That was the condition in those days. At the same time I feel that more number of successful psychiatrists were men, like successful gynecologists. So maybe women trusted males more into their health issues than women. But now I think the whole thing is changing and almost many, many women prefer taking psychiatry because they are the best psychologists and psychiatrists who understand the people much better than men.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll take that one of course. Doc, you've been so actively working in many fields over all these years, like you mentioned mental handicap, post disaster rehabilitation, sexual health which area do you find most?
Speaker 2:intriguing. Well, if you ask me, all of them, all of them, and I still work with many of them, like mental handicaps. I work with child labor once in a while when I go back home, and also, of course, sexual medicine and psychiatry. Ask me about psychiatry. It's like an ocean the deeper you go, you find much more treasure in it and you enjoy. You don't feel like coming out of that. Same thing with human sexuality, because it's a vast sea of emotions, more than the physical, the emotional. Balancing and connect is very important as far as sexuality is concerned is very important. As far as sexuality is concerned, nothing is only physical. Every physical illness has a sexual ovary, as well as every sexual. Every psychological imbalance has a repercussion on the physical health. Same thing happens as far as sex is concerned, and so psychology is equally important, as much as the organic problems.
Speaker 1:True. So, doctor, let me ask you a question specifically catering to women's health. Now, is there any aspect of women's sexual health that you think needs to be addressed but is being ignored at the moment?
Speaker 2:Yes, the guilt is one aspect of human female sexuality. Today we see that we feel that there is no guilt as far as sex is concerned. It's so open, it's so freely talked about, it's so freely acted also, and when they are exercising it right since their age, as low as 14-15 also people may not like me saying that, but which is a fact of life At that time, if I am going to be talking about, guilt is the most important factor there. Yes, they do it. They do it to prove themselves. They don't do it only because they want it or their body is needed. Yes, of course, at that age they are very sensitive and physically interested in sex. Sensitive and physically interested in sex. But more than being physically driven to that, it is more because somebody else has it and I'm not doing it. So it is more of a competitive in nature and that brings about more of a guilt, because they may not be socially, culturally ready or family wise. They are not ready for it, but they are compelling themselves to do it. At the same time, in married women also, I would say that, yes, guilt is one more thing. A married woman may not like everything about her partner, yet she has a guilt of not liking it. So these are the things which are very important.
Speaker 2:Fantasy is one very important aspect of sexuality. So if a woman is not going to feel free in fantasizing, she is not going to enjoy that free in fantasizing, she is not going to enjoy the act at all. I mean, she is restricting herself into enjoying the act because she has to fantasize pleasure, unless you imagine, unless you look forward, and when you look forward to that pleasure, if there is going to be a little bit of guilt in your mind that, oh, this is not really right. Am I being wrong? Am I fantasizing a wrong way or something? So that guilt is something I think one needs to deal with when it comes to female sexual aspect.
Speaker 1:So a lot of communication is what you're saying is important.
Speaker 2:Self-communication, self-analysis, communication and feeling happy about it is what should be taught to a lady right from beginning. True.
Speaker 1:So, doc, as a mental health professional in the field for so many years, I'm sure your work is both physically and emotionally challenging. But how have you been coping with this over the decades?
Speaker 2:well, I have to tell you something very interesting thing that has happened to me. This counter-transference is one big aspect as far as not only psychiatry is concerned, but also sexuality. It matters a lot. But I went through a training called as Sexuality of a Sex Counselor with Dr Frank Somers in Montreal. It was a very interesting training program where you learn to compartmentalize. It's something like blockchain. You have your own compartment. Your patient has his own compartment. Nothing interacts or exchanges between the two compartments, so his compartment, your judgment about him, remains in that compartment, and that compartment means his environment, his social environment, his family environment, his financial environment, his relationship. Everything is closed in that compartment. Everything is closed in that compartment should not be permitted to enter your compartment. So the minute patient leaves your office it's shut. So it rarely affects lovely.
Speaker 1:I like the whole visual that you've created here. I can see the little boxes all around right now. So is there a mantra that you have used for yourself when you've had low times or when you've had the need to reach out to someone? What do you do?
Speaker 2:Well, yes, who doesn't? Every human being has the low and the high, and my low time best companions were my parents. I could speak anything and everything to my father and my mother Prior to that, when I was growing up as a teenager. Some people laugh at me how can it be? But I used to talk to my grandparents how lovely, and we were a joint family and I think I learned so much from my grandparents my grandmother, my grandfather, all of them and fortunately still, that my both side, my maternal and paternal grandparents were very open to all these discussions.
Speaker 2:I remember my first growing up or getting my first periods. It was my nanaji who told me about all that. He said, no, don't worry, you're not going to be separated. Those were the days when girls were not allowed to walk around the house also, and he put his foot down and said no discrimination, she will come and sit here with me in my shop. He had a shop, a printing place, so I used to go and sit with him and he used to tell me about what changes occur in a female body. So I think I was fortunate enough in growing up and whenever I was low, I could talk to my parents. Now, after so many years that my parents are not there for about last 10-12 years, I feel very confident in talking to my daughters about all this. So you've come a full circle.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:How nice. I hope everybody finds this, because this is something we take for granted family Most of us have it, but we don't tap into the true resource that we have, correct? So, doc, you're one of the best people to address this question Now. This question I've had in my mind forever. As a psychologist, I face it. I have my own answers, which might be different, but let me ask you over the years, over the decades, how has mental health changed? Were there any challenges you faced when you started out which you don't face now? Or do you think that things are all the same?
Speaker 2:I wouldn't talk about challenges right in the beginning. I would say that when we started off there was a very small basket of medicines or the drugs available, the facilities available, the openness of the patients, the availability of psychiatrists. Not only that, but even the physicians, the family doctors, they all kind of had their strings attached to the patient and they knew when to pull that patient back, went to pull that patient back. Young patients were hesitant in bringing to. They were hesitant in coming to psychiatrist and even the doctors would say that no, he is not mad, he only has a little bit of a problem.
Speaker 2:No need to go to a psychiatrist. They will give you shock, and that was a threat not of the medicine but of the shock. True, and yes, those were the days when that was the ultimate that we had. It's not so now. Now it is much better. We have a much larger basket. But more than all that, now we know the biology of most of the disorders. We know the neurological side of it. We have so many other ways to study psychiatry, like we can do MRIs. We can rule out so many things, simple things like B12 deficiencies, which can cause mental confusion. But those were not the days when we would even think about all this. So so much has changed. Psychology or psychiatry, is going far ahead and at a much faster pace. So not just neurochemistry, that is another thing that we know now in much greater details. So I think there is a lot of change that has occurred as far as psychiatry in those days and now.
Speaker 1:So what I hear you saying, doc, is that so many treatment modalities have changed. We have so much more to offer as doctors to our patients. What about the patients themselves? Do you see patients being different emotionally now than they were earlier? Do you think the atmosphere, the surroundings, nature has changed anything in us?
Speaker 2:well, yes, it has and it has. All these things were there even earlier and all these things exist even today. But there was a way of a difference. Today the anxiety, depression, all these things have really escalated to greater heights. Reason is again social. Social challenges are increasing anxiety and depression. Both those days also it was there. But at the same time there was a lot of family support at that time to deal with anxiety. There were people where you could share your feelings. But as far as psychosis is concerned, I don't think it has helped. It has changed much, but the treatment modalities have changed it right. So many more psychotics also. We see that they are well settled and working, working to a very good extent. They may not be at their best, but they are still doing very good.
Speaker 1:So we are seeing a better quality of life in the same diagnosis that we had earlier Correct.
Speaker 2:Very true, lovely For people who are active on social media, which is pretty much most of us and especially my audience, because they are seeing this on social media in their own life that without social media I don't think even children can breathe. So my take on all that would be you must give a holiday to social media, a total take off from social media, at least for some time, at regular intervals.
Speaker 1:So how frequent? Is frequent enough? Should this be once a week?
Speaker 2:Oh, that would depend on how much you use and what is your surrounding like. If you have, even when you are using your social media, you can limit it and spend time in doing your hobbies, like, maybe music, maybe sports maybe gymnastics, maybe, whatever, depending on your age group.
Speaker 2:So you should take off from social media. Off from social media, maybe at intervals, if you can't do without a social media, if your basic core or your profession needs to be attached to social media, then you can spend the remaining time in doing all these other things, not 24-7 glued to social media. I have seen young stores falling asleep with their iPads and laptops around them.
Speaker 1:It's quite a scary sight, but it's so common that I think nobody notices it anymore. Initially people would say, oh, keep it away. And now people are like, okay, fine, just put it on charger and put it next to you. I think that has also changed and I love this idea of quantity time. We keep thinking of you. Know we need to do better stuff on social media, but even the quantity matters. As long as you can just take a break, go cold turkey. That is more help. Lovely Doc, have you for yourself tried any of the new mental health tools, these AI bots? Some of them have been quite popularized with the new machine learning. What's your?
Speaker 2:take on this. Yes, you, just I wish that you have an answer for it. What do?
Speaker 1:you think of this?
Speaker 2:I. I think we are becoming slaves of uh ai now, unless we protect ourselves, we would enslave ourselves so much that we may lose our capacity to think by ourselves. Our justifying thinking or logical thinking may not be there like unused parts of our body. So it is scary. You have to let your brain also think independently. What will happen to your memory Today? How many of us remember telephone numbers of our own friends or families? We don't, but there was a time when we could remember at least minimum 70 to 100 phone numbers. We don't even remember car numbers. We don't remember anything that is important to us. We just check our mobile and try to recollect what the number is.
Speaker 1:But Doc, do you think this might be a good tool in our hands in the near future as a therapist? Now there are a lot of bots which are being projected as being machine learning AI bots, and they are easily accessible. They are cheap, they are in your pocket. Not everybody can afford a psychologist or a psychiatrist, so do you really think there's a future for these?
Speaker 2:bots. If you ask me, a counseling with a barbot is a very wrong idea For two things A, if you haven't typed your question properly, you may not get a good answer or a right kind of an answer to your question, true. Second, the human interaction is lost. The human touch is not there. You just sit with somebody, smile at somebody, make that person feel comfortable with you. The person is already relaxed, at least 20%. That doesn't happen with machine learning or machine counseling, it doesn't. It just gives you a feel. It's very mechanical. So we are not machines, we are human beings and human feelings, emotions. Everything is understood by second human, another human, not machine, well point taken.
Speaker 1:So, rakit, there is one advice that you would give your 13 year old self. What would you tell your younger self?
Speaker 2:Well, I would tell myself at age of 13 that see, there are so many things in the world to learn. Sit down, talk to your senior, talk to your close friend and decide what you want to really get into, because that's the most dangerous age. I call it dangerous, I don't even say it's a very sensitive age, but it is super sensitive that can become dangerous For oneself. Your physical changes, your mental changes, your changing, what you are seeing in the world also is changing super fast, which wasn't so. So I would recommend that at 13, one has to sit and talk to somebody, one needs to keep talking to somebody and discuss and move ahead Lovely.
Speaker 1:Doc, are there any mental health tips that you can give women in their 40s? Because I think 40-year-old women are more confused right now than 14-year-old girls used to be. Everything is being blamed on perimenopause, post-covid confusion. There are people spending eight nine hours a day on their phones, scrolling mindlessly and then saying, oh, I have brain fog, maybe it's my age catching up. So, from the mental health perspective, what tips would you give women in their 40s?
Speaker 2:I would say discipline yourself the first and foremost thing. I would say discipline yourself first. Discipline yourself if you feel that you're catching up with age. Discipline in exercise, get up and sleep on time. Restrict your phone time, restrict your diet. Communication not over phone, but personal communication time If you have partners.
Speaker 2:Holding hands, sitting and talking, having a cup of tea or coffee in a silent mode, looking at each other or doing things together is also a very good catharsis. If you can't do all this, it doesn't matter. With your friends, make it a point to go and meet them or invite them or meet them in a common place, but spend time together, not only on phone or social media. I see so many of them having hundreds of friends on social media but not a single when they really need to hold hand.
Speaker 2:I keep saying hold hand because I think human touch, nothing can make up for that human touch, even as a consultant, even as a counselor, although we have been warned as not to touch your patient, warned as not to touch your patient, but there are so many occasions that you just give a tap on his back or her back and shoulder and say relax, patient feels much, much easier, better, more confident. Same thing at the age of 40, you need to give a tap on your shoulder and say, hey, baby, relax, 40 is not something that is end of life. You have just become free of your many, many responsibilities.
Speaker 2:Now is the time when you plan your life ahead. You have so much to do, so many things you wanted to do and never did it. You kept comparing yourself with others. Stop comparing. Everybody is an individual by yourself.
Speaker 1:That sounds like a perfect mini session for all my 40-year-old friends, so I'm going to clip this and share this in my podcast as well. Talk a very personal question to you now, a question I love asking all my guests on my podcast. Like, we have a physical first aid box in the house. We want to keep a band-aid, some paracetamol, you know, just something for those minor cuts and bruises. What if we were to keep a mental first aid box? What if you were to keep a mental first aid box with little things that would make you happy as soon as you opened it? So what would you?
Speaker 2:personally put in your box, in my box. Well, I would put some chocolates, lovely, and what else. I would put a photograph of my parents and chocolates Perfect.
Speaker 1:So the minute you open it, you have a little bit of joy. Great chocolates, perfect. So the minute you open it you have a little bit of joy, great. Before we come to a close of the podcast, is there any question that you would like to ask me as a psychologist?
Speaker 2:yes, I've been waiting to ask this question. Please go ahead. As a health psychologist, I'm sure you need to give some health tips also to your patients brother friends, patients, colleagues, whatever it is as much as you give them the health tips for their brain or emotions. So what are those tips that you give?
Speaker 1:I think one of the first things I would say is I've come a long way in learning when we finished our education in psychology.
Speaker 1:As you know, even for health psychology, up to your PhD, you're not really learning about the body as much as you want to. So I've been lucky to be in contact, with, working with, having colleagues in different fields endocrinology, cardiology, neurology who have taught me a lot about the body. And you're right. People come and say that, okay, I'm feeling stressed and so I'm dizzy, but what is this dizziness? What is the label? How do I get rid of it?
Speaker 1:I have people standing on a high building and saying, oh, I have vertigo. So sometimes I have to correct them that, okay, have you been diagnosed? Is it dizziness or vertigo? So I do this now based on all the things that I have learned from all these experts that don't diagnose yourself, don't label yourself. So the first thing I tell my friends, my patients, my you know, anybody who comes to me for a physical advice is that you have a symptom, write it down. Write it down before you label yourself. Keep that as an organic beginning point so that when you go to the consultant or to the doctor you are not going to say that, oh, I have tachycardia no you can say I feel palpitations.
Speaker 1:Or you will not say I have vertigo. You can say I feel dizzy. Let the doctor decide what is happening to you, and that's the only way you'll get a proper diagnosis and a treatment plan.
Speaker 2:So well, I hope that helps my patients or my friends as much as I hope it does I must interrupt here, and I said that I don't like ai so much because people tend to die put a diagnosis through all by themselves onto whatever their symptoms are and that also makes it quicker for the consultant to say oh, they've come with this because they have a diagnosis, and so you start at a different point if a patient comes in.
Speaker 1:I've seen some very senior doctors work in a very simple way. They just tell the patient don't tell me what you have, tell me what you're feeling, bring it down, break it down to the pieces of symptoms and we'll put it together, correct?
Speaker 2:absolutely I. I don't like people coming and saying that oh, but we went on the Google and searched, so I don't retaliate. To them. I say well, I know you are a Google expert, but let me learn what you have, so tell me what you feel and what you suffer. Whatever you told Google, now you tell it to me.
Speaker 1:Lovely. I think all of us, as mental health professionals, as medical professionals, have come a long way from the time that we studied to the time that we are now practicing. Let me give you a personal example. When I was doing season one and season two of my podcast, there was a lag of three months in between. But I jumped right in Now, between season two and season three, when I started again and I updated all my apps and I got all my softwares up to date. Everything had changed. So in these three months almost three decades- had passed Correct Because suddenly AI is everywhere.
Speaker 1:It has intruded on every aspect of the software that I'm using and now I have to take a step back and say dude, I'm doing my work like, yes, stay away, so I'm also learning through this process.
Speaker 1:but, dog, it has been so lovely to be able to talk to you and to be able to share this discussion with people, because women's sexual health, men's sexual health, psychiatry these are all taboo subjects, to a point of nobody even wanting to put a hashtag on a note of which has been posted online because people say it is too vulgar, it is too risk. But these are the things that everybody is dealing with suffering from, maybe, enjoying maybe, but not talking about. It's not a rare disorder that we can ignore. These are things that we need to talk about for a healthier society. So I'm glad that you are there in Pune about for a healthier society. So I'm glad that you're there in Pune at the helm of things, and I'm really, really honored that you could take the time to talk to me today. Thank you so much Thank you.
Speaker 2:It was my pleasure too. I was looking forward to it for a very long time. I'm so glad, not just to make a podcast, but just to meet you and sit and chat with you my pleasure.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Thanks a lot.
