A short public talk by Asif Osman introducing basic psychology themes. He emphasizes the centrality of the brain, notes an estimated shortage of mental-health professionals (example: ~5,000 in India), and gives prevalence figures for mental disorders (speaker cites ~20–25%). He highlights cultural stigma—especially in Asian contexts—that discourages help-seeking, and closes with a brief overview of personality origins (nature vs. nurture: ~50% genes, ~40% environment, ~10% unknown).
Chapters
Okay. Bismillahirrahman Rahim. Assalamualaikum. Thank you for your patience. I'm so sorry to keep you waiting like this, but we had some technical challenge. You like the helmet? Anybody got a helmet like this? I want to show you this helmet mainly because it is going well with the topic that I'm going to talk about today. For the past two years I've been spending a lot of time studying psych. So what is the most important body part that we all have? The brain. So this is why he is wearing a helmet like this that is covering his head in such a way. Because if we do not have a brain, we are zero. It is actually our brain that is helping us to do everything. Every single body function the brain is controlling. So the importance of the brain can overcome only be appreciated when we don't have a brain or there is a damage to the brain. Okay, so just like last time, I think many of you are wondering when is this speech going to stop and when is the games going to start, right? Inshallah, soon. I'm not going to make this a long speech, but I want to share what I have been learning. Just to give you an idea. They estimate that there are 5,000 mental health qualified professionals in India. They say that in America, which has a population of only one third of India has a hundred times more. So you can imagine how much shortage there is. So mostly the reason is there is a stigma. There is a feeling that if he's crazy, what we can do? Send him to mental asylum. But not everybody is crazy but has some mental issue. Or the other people you think in the world have some mental disorder. I'm asking you. 20%. 20%. So you also doing some study? Very good. Actually that's the correct answer. 25%. Actually I never expected, you know, anybody to get correct answer. Because I would have, if somebody asked me this two years before, I would have said maybe 5%, 2%, 3%. Because most of us seem normal, right? But they say that 20% of us humans, we will go through some mental disorder in our life, throughout our life. 20% of us will have. Does that mean some of us will go crazy? No, it doesn't mean like that, but some mental disorder. Can you think of some mental disorder that you might have seen in some family member or friends? Depression. Depression. Very good. So very smart people in the audience today. Depression is a mental disorder. So many of our brothers and sisters suffer through this depression. There are so many others. I don't want to take names and say okay, this guy knows more than me. I didn't know anything. I learnt all this in the past couple of years that I've been studying and I'm continuing to study. Right now I'm enrolled in four courses. And where do you go? You go to a doctor, right? The doctor can take X ray, doctor can do blood test. But when you have a mental problem, there is two issues. When the problem is something with the mind. First of all, people don't want to go to a doctor. Or the family doesn't want to allow anybody to know that there is a problem like this. This is a huge problem. It's a huge problem, especially in our Asian culture that there is a stigma against going to mental doctor. Whose problem is that? You put that seal whose family. All these things are unfortunate bad in the culture and it is spoiling people and making them worse. Okay, so when you have a problem with your body, you go to a doctor. Actually when you have a problem with your mind also you have to go to an expert. First of all, we have this stigma. Secondly, there is big lack of mental health professionals. This is one of the reason I am talking about this subject today. That if you yourself or your children or your family members you want to talk about this, make them interested in this subject. There is two benefits. One is there is almost guaranteed employment in the future. Because there is so few professionals. Number two is you are doing a great social service. This is a job which is required for people. Just like we say Dr. Ke paj gyaa usne mera ilaj karaya. That is a great social service. That is why doctors are respected so much. So this is also a profession that will be respected. But it is an even more difficult job than a doctor. Why? Doctor can do X ray, he can do blood test. He can see the body, he can feel the body. When something is inside here, there is very little he can see. He cannot feel. There is no blood test is much more complicated from a physiological point of view. So there are so many different, different ones. I'm not going to talk about everything. I'm just going to give you an idea that it is a vast subject. Pay attention to this. Somebody of you will be interested in this industrial and organizational psychology. So if a person like this gentleman sitting over here, how many of you know him? This man sitting here, how many of you here know him? You know him? Only two people know him. Okay, Many people know him. So if you ask what is his personality, you'll say many things, right? So how did he become this personality? There says two things. Nature and nurture. What's the meaning of that? Nature means the genes. The genes. What you got from your mother and father, your grandfather, etc. Hereditary, I.e. nature and nurture mean the environment in which he was born. The environment of the family, the friends, the country, the position in which he was raised. This is nurture. This is what made him like what he is today. Okay, so this nature and nurture. What percentage of a person's personality is nature and how much is nurture? Aslam, any guesses? Yeah. What percentage of personality? He's trying to look on Google. He has a nice phone, so he's looking on Google. What is the answer? Huh? 50. 50. Actually. Actually, what most experts are saying it is 50% of the genes hereditary. 40% is nurtured. That is your environment, your family, your friends. And 10% unknown. Why they say 10% has to be unknown? Because sometimes you are born into a very weak, uneducated family, but you turn up to be a genius. We have seen instances of that.
