4th Annual Conference on Art Therapy: Report

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IMG_20160410_103129_HDR4th Annual Conference on Art Therapy was organized by DANA on 10th April, 2016. The Day-long programme was held at The Hotel Golden Park, Kolkata. Swami Tattwatitananda of the R>K>Mission Institute of Culture inaugurated the Conference. In his Key-note Address Dr Chittaranjan Andrate of NIMHANS, Bengaluru spoke on ‘Art, Creativity & Brain’. In the pre-lunch and the post-lunch sessions papers were presented by Dr Debasis Bhattacharya, Dr Sayandip Ghosh, Prof S. Nundy Majumder and Ms Trina Lahiri on topics entitled ‘An Overview of Art Therapy’, ‘Art Therapy as an Adjunct Treatment for Adult Psychiatric Patients’, ‘Interpretation of Visual Language – Looking through the Eyes of Children’, and ‘Art Therapy in Terminal Illness’respectively. The programme ended with a panel discussion having Mr Hiran Mitra, Dr Gautam Saha and Dr Gautam Bandyopadhyay and Dr Amit Chakraborty as moderator. Important personalities, both from the field of Art & Mental Health attended the conference. They were Mr Swapnesh Choudhury, Dr Partha Pratim Roy, Dr S.B. Sinha, Prof O.P. Singh, Mr Kalyan Chakraborty, Dr Arnab Banerjee, Mr Samindra Majumder, Dr Hena Barat Roy, Dr Tultul Ghosh, Mr Harit Basu, Ms Bandana Mukherjee, Ms Subhra Banerjee Pal, Ms Sutapa Chakraborty & Ms Rita Roy. The programme was anchored by Dr Sheila Banerjee and the Vote of Thanks was given by Ms Pallabi Mukhopadhyay on behalf of DANA.
INTUS offered financial support for organizing the conference.

Annual Conference on Art Therapy

Final Announcement of National Conference on Art Therapy -2016

Organized by: D A N A (Diagnostic and Applied Neuropsychological Association)
Venue: Hotel Golden Park
13, Ho Chi Minh Sarani, Kolkata-700071
Date: 10th April, 2016
You must be aware that DANA is a reputed NGO working for promotion of Mental Health Awareness for last 16years. We are happy to announce that we will be organizing the IVth Annual conference on Art Therapy on 10th April, 2016. The theme for the conference is “Visual Art in Therapy”. We look forward for your participation in the conference to make it a grand success.
PROGRAMME_________________________________________________________________
10 am – Inauguration : Swami Tattwatitananda
R.K Mission Institute of Culture,
Gol Park, Kolkata
10-30am – Session 1 : “Art, Creativity and Brain”
Dr. Chittaranjan Andrade
Prof. & Head, Deptt. Psychopharmacology,
NIMHANS, Bengaluru
Chairperson:Prof..Goutam Bandopadhyay
Co-chairperson: Mr.Swapnesh Chaudhuri,
Artist, President –AFA
11-30am – Session 2 : “An Overview of Art Therapy”
Dr. Debasis Bhattacharya
Chairperson: Dr. Partha Pratim Roy
Co-chairperson: Dr.S.B.Sinha ,Artist
Ex-principal –ICAD, Emeritus Fellow-UGC

12 noon – Session 3 : “Art Therapy as an Adjunctive Treatment
for Adult Psychiatric Patients” –
Dr. Sayandip Ghosh
Chairperson: Prof. O.P.Singh, HOD, Psych. NRSMCH
Co-chairperson: Sri. Kalyan Chakraborti,
Artist: President – Canvas Artists’Circle

12-30pm – session 4 : “Interpretation of Visual Language
– looking through the eyes of children”.
Prof. S.Nandy Majumdar, Deptt. Of Art History, Kalabhawan,
ViswaBharati, Santiniketan
Chairperson: Dr. Arnab Banerjee
Co-chairperson: Mr. Samindra Majumder,
Assist.Prof.in FineArts,ICAD

1pm – Session 5 : “Art therapy in terminal illness”
Ms. Trina Lahiri
Chairperson. Dr. Hena Barat Roy
Co chairprson – Dr. Tultul Ghosh

1-30pm : LUNCH

2-30pm : Panel Discussion
Sri. Hiran Mitra, Dr.GautamSaha, Dr. Goutam Bandopadhyay
Moderator: Dr. Amit Chakraborti

4pm : Interactive Session

4-30pm : TEA

Art Therapy: an Appeal to Mental Health Professionals

In my personal capacity, I shall hardly be able to give a comprehensive report of ART-THERAPY in India. As far as I know , at least in urban sector, under the umbrella of institutions, universities, art-schools & psychology departments Visual art is not yet considered as a tool for therapy for mental distress. It may be mentioned here that Music –therapy or Dance-therapy are relatively more acceptable and practiced in some institutions.
On the other hand, we truly have no dearth of resource persons necessary for conducting Art-therapy . We have huge number of trained artists , psychologists, psychiatrists & psychotherapists . We have rich vocabulary of folk-art. We also find a good number of social-workers, who use art-materials and art-activity with the purpose of SOCIAL-THERAPY, specially for underprivileged and mentally challenged children.
At the same time, we know that the use and practice of Art- therapy has increased exponentially all over the world. I personally believe that our country which is basically multi-linguistic, Visual language has a special scope for communication in expression of inner self.
So I believe that there is a wide need to spread the concept and facilities of Art-therapy befitting our socio-cultural context. We have been running an Art-therapy clinic at a NGO , DANA (www.danakolkata.org ), Kolkata, for last four years. Our team of psychologist, artist and psychiatrist have been working with adult psychiatrist patients.
We also organize annual conference to review our works and to interact with experts of related disciplines. Broadly we like to focus our discourses on (1) Creativity and creative process and ( 2 ) Visual Language as a form of non-verbal communication.
Next year we like to hold our annual-meet sometime in the month of March 2016. We have been heartily trying to reach to all the like-mind professionals. Please feel free to communicate your views and enrich our vision.
DR. DEBASIS BHATTACHARYA
( www.drdebasis.com )

Dr. L. P. Verma Memorial Oration by Dr Debasis Bhattacharya

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Exif_JPEG_420– Dr. L. P. Verma Memorial Oration at 41st Annual Conference of the Eastern Zonal Branch of Indian Psychiatric Society was delivered by Dr Debasis Bhattacharya at Shillong on 9th October, 2015. He spoke on Art Therapy based on his research experience and studies conducted at DANA during last 3 years. His lecture was highly acclaimed by the Psychiatrists attending the conference from all parts of Eastern and North Eastern India.

World Mental Health Day: Interactive Programs at DANA on 10th & 11th October

On the occasion of the World Mental Health Day, DANA organized a special Book Fair showcasing the books & magazines published by various Mental Health Organizations and Interactive Sessions with the experts on the following issues:
1) Dignity in Mental Health Care
2) Mental Health Problems of Old Age &
3) Parenting and other Child Related Issues.
The following Resource Persons participated in sessions:
Dr Amal Kumar Mallick, Dr Satyajit Ash, Dr Amit Chakraborty, Dr Aniruddha Deb, Dr Jyotirmoy Sengupta, Dr Gautam Bandyopadhyay, Dr Indrajit Sengupta, Mohit Ranadip, Tarun Dutta & Gopal Sethiar. Ratna Mitra & Gautam Bandyopadhyay moderated the sessions. More than 40 persons attended the sessions on both the days and interacted with the speakers.

From L to R: Dr Gautam Bandyopadhyay, Gopal Sethiar, Mohit Ranadip & Dr Jyotirmoy Samajdar
From L to R: Dr Gautam Bandyopadhyay, Gopal Sethiar, Mohit Ranadip & Dr Jyotirmoy Samajdar
From L to R: Dr Gautam Bandyopadhyay, Dr Amal Kumar Mallick, Dr Indrajit Sengupta, Tarun Dutta & Ratna Mitra
From L to R: Dr Gautam Bandyopadhyay, Dr Amal Kumar Mallick, Dr Indrajit Sengupta, Tarun Dutta & Ratna Mitra
[caption
From L to R: Dr Amit Chakraborty, Dr Aniruddha Deb, Dr Satyajit Ash & Ratna Mitra From L to R: Dr Amit Chakraborty, Dr Aniruddha Deb, Dr Satyajit Ash & Ratna Mitra
width=”3200″ height=”2400″ class=”size-full wp-image-251″ /> From L to R: Dr Amit Chakraborty, Dr Aniruddha Deb, Dr Satyajit Ash & Ratna Mitra[/caption]AudienceAudience

World Mental Health Day: Book Fair at DANA

On the occasion of the World Mental Health Day DANA is organizing a special Book Fair Books on Psychology & Mental Health at the Premises of DANA (15/4 Rahim Ostagar Road, Jodhpur Park beside 95 Palli Club) on 10th & 11th September, 2015 between 2 & 7 pm daily. Books and magazines on Mental Health Problems published by various Mental Health Organizations in and around Kolkata will participate. Books will be displayed and sold in the fair. The following organizations will participate:

DANA
MON FOUNDATION
MANAS
SANGBED
PAVLOV INSTITUTE
GISPER
SEVAK

DANA WILL ALSO ORGANIZE INTERACTIVE SESSIONS ON BOTH THE DAYS BETWEEN 3 & 6.30 PM WITH RENOWNED MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS & ACTIVISTS ON THE CURRENT YEAR’S (dignity in mental health care) & ISSUES LIKE PARENTING AND PROBLEMS OF OLD-AGE.
The Speakers:
Dr Amal Kumar Mallick, Dr Satyajit Ash, Dr Jyotirmoy Samajdar, Dr Aniruddha Deb, Dr Gautam Bandyopadhyay, Ratnaboli Roy, Mohit Ranadip, Dr Amit Chakraborty and others.

ALL ARE WELCOME