Counselling Corner aims to improve mental health well-being in Myanmar and in this regular newsletter we want to inform you how to take care of the well-being of the people in your organization – especially in this period.
Counselling Corner activities during the last month
While staying mostly at home and use Zoom (when the internet is working), we tried as much as possible to support people around the country. During the month of March, Counselling Corner gave a free basic counselling training to teachers, medical staff and community workers in Yangon, Thandwe and Mawlamyine with the aim to have more people nationwide providing basic counselling services. On Saturdays we organised the free workshops for individuals to express their emotions and practice listening skills in order to create a better coping system.
Besides the above we continue to support clients with individual counselling and we did a lot of workshops especially for people working for international NGO’s and other corporations. We are proud to be selected by some international EAP providers like for example the world largest provider Compsych to take care of their clients in Myanmar.
By accepting the paid jobs from some organisations, we are able to offer subsidised or free of charge services for people who can’t afford mental health services. A big thank you for all the international organisations for paying in time and for paying the usual rates as that’s what keeps us going!
Individual or group counselling; a Myanmar case study
Many HR managers in Myanmar tend to think that their staff will not feel comfortable talking about emotions in a group, but we see the opposite reaction during our workshops. Especially during this time, Myanmar people have many strong emotions and people really appreciate to be able to talk about these. The counsellors are experienced in letting people to open up and share their emotions. This process encourages other people in the group to speak-up as well and all group members then realise they are not the only one with these emotions.
This workshop has proven to be very effective for companies to offer their staff and is more cost efficient than for example offering individual staff counselling. Besides that; the emotional workshop enables you to reach ALL your employees, while we see in practice that individual counselling sessions are only used by a small group of the total company staff.
Experiential groups aim to:
Change in subjective emotional comfort, including changes in anxiety or tension
Build participants’ sense of empowerment
Reduce guilt, stigma and shame associated with mental health conditions
Improve sense of belonging and connectedness and reduce isolation and loneliness
Learn and practice stress management techniques and activities
Give insight or a clear rational and emotional understanding of strengths and problems
Develop self-care practices to support individuals mental health and wellbeing
Offer participants the opportunity to be active participants in a group
We do see many companies start offering to pay for their staff individual sessions and it’s very good from companies to care about their staff. However, we see that individual staff members feel reluctant to call:
They think they can solve the problem by themselves (as other people have far bigger problems)
They feel uncomfortable as they feel they are “using” company resources for their own benefit
They feel shy (towards their HR department as they might know that they did call) – to be clear: Counselling Corner will never disclose anything discussed in an individual session.
They don’t understand what counselling means or how it could help them
Especially in Myanmar we see that a group session (or emotional workshop as we call it) is the best way to support your ALL Myanmar staff.
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Facebook Live
We continue every Tuesday at 7 pm with the Facebook Live broadcast and do get a lot of positive feedback. It’s free of charge, so do share this with all people in your organisation. Different topics have been discussed including trauma in a crisis situation and how to deal with fear. On Tuesday 23 March the Live talk was about emotions and how it’s completely normal to have a lot of strong emotions during this period. Don’t suppress these emptions but let them out. As always; at the end of the Live session there is time to ask questions. Do you want to know more about the different emotions you could be experiencing at the moment? Read this blog on our website: “my mind is like a rollercoaster”
Advanced Counselling Training
Improving the mental health situation in Myanmar is not something we can do alone and that’s why we have trained over 500 people in basic counselling skills to use in their community. Once people have finished the 20 hours, they can apply to do the advanced counselling skills training. This training goes deeper into the techniques to use for counselling.
The next Advanced Counselling Training starts on 20 June 2021
The next Basic Counselling Training starts on 14 May 2021
Our aim is to get more people interested in counselling and use the new skills in their daily job (HR staff, nurses, community workers, ambulance staff etc.). Once you have done the advanced training, you have a better understanding of what kind of situation you can deal with yourself, when you need supervision from a professional psychotherapist and when you need to refer to somebody else. The cost for the training is 150.000 Kyats per person. Do get in touch if you’re interested.
Free Emotional Workshop
It could be good to talk to somebody if you have witnessed a traumatic situation, or you simply feel anxious and overwhelmed or you feel helpless or hopeless. Speaking openly about your emotions is not always easy so Counselling Corner set-up free workshops every Wednesday from 3 – 5 pm and every Saturday from 10 – 12 am for anybody to join.
During the Zoom sessions the counsellor will explain more about mental health and you will practice talking and listening skills. It’s easy, anybody from anywhere in the country can join (if you have an internet connection). How to join? Send us an email (info@
Please do share / like and contact us if you have any questions or suggestions on the above or want to know more about our services. We want to make it easier for people to talk about mental well-being and we need help for all organisations in Myanmar to discuss mental well-being openly with your team and work on improving it.
For the enquiry, Please contact us :
Kaung Htet Shine
Sales & Marketing
Phone:09664017251, 09 784 509 916