ABU DHABI // The psychiatric department at Sheikh Khalifa Medical City today resumes its mental health awareness programme.
Organisers say the initiative has been revived because of the public's continued misconceptions about mental health problems.
"We are still facing people who unfortunately have a lot of confused and misunderstood ideas about the human psychological condition," said Dr Tarek Darwish, the medical director at the Behavioural Science Pavilion, which is running the programme.
"People in the community have very minimal knowledge about mental health, so we believe it is our role to clarify the issues for them and help them really understand what they mean."
Dr Darwish will speak at the first lecture tonight, between 7pm and 9pm at the Behavioural Science Pavilion's auditorium.
The programmes, in Arabic, will offer monthly public seminars on different topics related to mental health. The sessions will be run by a panel of mental health professionals including psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers.
Dr Darwish said each sitting would include a long session for questions from the public.
"The floor will be open for discussion, which is really what is important," he said.
"Half of the time is used for questions from the public and sometimes it gets very crowded in the auditorium."
