‘Counselling can reduce crime’

LAHORE : Former Chairman of the Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) Prof Dr Nizamuddin has said: “Interdisciplinary approach is missing in our academic and research culture and we must ensure interconnectivity of disciplines to resolve psychological issues being faced by the society.”

He said this while addressing the inaugural ceremony of an international conference on recent trends and interventions in clinical psychology organised by Punjab University’s Centre for Clinical Psychology here on Thursday. PU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Niaz Ahmad, CCP Director Dr Saima Dawood, scientists from various parts of the world and country, faculty members and a large number of students were present on the occasion. Dr Nizamuddin further said no discipline could work in isolation and there was need to adopt collective approach in ‘our academic culture’. He said there was lack of psychological studies in Pakistan and ‘we should create knowledge through doing indigenous original research’. He said ‘our social problems would be solved when we set our research agenda’. He said ‘we could also reduce number of crimes through psychological counselling’.

Prof Niaz Ahmad said people were not even aware of their psychological issues. He said ‘our society was facing several issues in education psychology, industrial psychology, sports psychology, etc. and our experts must focus on resolving these’. He said PU would extend full support to launch such projects which would help resolve psychological issues being faced in Pakistani society.

Dr Saima Dawood said there was a huge scope to work in clinical psychology for students and experts. She said 10 pre-conference workshops had been conducted from March 4 to March 19 whereas four workshops would be conducted after conference on different topics of clinical psychology.