Student Intern - Psychiatric Clinic, Drug Addiction Treatment, and Rehabilitation Centre

This summer my internship was based at the Healing House Psychiatric Clinic, Drug Detoxification and Rehabilitation Centre in Islamabad. During these eight weeks, I got a chance to shadow Dr. Abdul Ghafoor Malik, the co-founder and clinical director of Healing House, and sat through the debriefing and discussion about the most prevalent mental disorders faced by Pakistanis nowadays. As a result of the current political unrest and economic crisis in addition to the catastrophic floods of 2022, The Pakistan Association for Clinical Psychologists (PACP) has issued a warning over an anticipated surge in mental health issues. The internship gave me a chance to have a closer look at the issues and the awareness sessions conducted in the remote areas of Northern Pakistan helped me initiate a platform to voice these struggles and gave me an opportunity to have a discussion about the necessary steps.

My internship responsibilities at the Healing House have helped me polish my interpersonal skills through our daily patient and team interaction. In addition, the awareness sessions enabled my theoretical understanding of behavioral neuroscience and mental wellness in a practical setting, discussing it with the students, listening to them, and working in small groups to come up with possible remedies on personal and community levels. This opportunity has strengthened my knowledge and interest in the field of behavioral neuroscience and laid out a path for my graduate studies. My growing interest in public health, mainly mental health, has led me to plan my graduate school applications narrowed down to specific fields and research labs.