Startup Circle: How is Serefe using tech for mental health counselling and holistic well-being?

Serefe: People turning to e-therapists during Pandemic to find ways of dealing with the uncertain time. Last few months have been very challenging for everyone in the world, and it disheartening to see people succumbing to suicide every now and then. While people have started recognising mental health as a very important issue to deal with, the stigma that mental health carried for years has started to fade away. More and more people have started opening up about the challenges they go through, whether it's about severe mental breakdown due to multiple reasons like emotional stress, financial stress or simple about having someone to talk to who has the potential to show you the day of the light.

The global pandemic has hit us really hard, and people got the opportunity to connect with e-therapists to share their problems and get help. Serefe is a platform that provides emotional support, improve holistic well-being through caring counsellors. Here, listeners have seen a great surge in people reaching out to them for help.

CiOL, thus, talks to Mr Sandeep Gandhi of Serefe to know more about the e-therapist.

1. What is Serefe about? Tell us about the team.

Stigma, Discrimination, and Unawareness associated with seeking professional mental health advice prevents over 2/3rd of individuals to go for counselling/therapy. Serefe is an exception. It is a potential platform where individuals are able to seek help and talk to well-trained counsellors through phone calls, video calls, and chat for their psychosocial needs.

Serefe provides services like personal counselling, relationship counselling, family counselling, career counselling, family counselling, and teen counselling, Various Therapies - Dance, Reiki, Past life regression, etc. At Serefe, we are your friends with a sensitive soul always ready to provide you with mental support highly privately and confidentially.

The team comprises of over 25 well trained & professionally qualified counsellors, Clinical physiologist and therapy experts from across the country. Additionally, a central team is run by professionals with an average experience of over 10 years

2. How did you come up with the idea?

India is, unfortunately, one of the most depressed countries in the world (roughly 15-20% of the world's mental health patients are in India). In this fast-pacing world, we really feel lonely and more disappointed when nobody turns out during tough times. Moreover, like most places, India too hasn't evolved fully to openly discuss mental wellbeing issues like we discuss a typical flu fever or headache. The feeling that "It's okay to have a fever is as good (or bad) as having a mental wellbeing issue", hasn't sunk in yet.

To add to that, another misconception attached is that mental issues can only be dealt with by a Psychiatrists. There is this crucial stage before a mental issue could become a Psychiatrists issue and that is a trained professional counsellor/therapist. Going by WHO indications, a person feeling mentally unwell takes years to open up even to close friends, family members, and leave apart a Psychiatrists due to the stigma attached to talk about mental wellness. Serefe was hence born with this idea to bring Counselors, Clinical Therapists/Philologists who are empathetic, caring, friendly, one among us and could privately speak with patients.

Serefe is to help individuals:

● Become self-sufficient, self-dependent, and self-directed

● Being aware of issues and stay in touch with yourself.

● Enhance their personal, social, emotional, and intellectual development.

3. Why venture into e-therapy? Are people approving it largely?

We are a well-rounded platform providing online video counselling, therapy etc. This has been well prevalent in the western world and as an early mover in India Serefe.org is getting tremendous response/acceptability.

4. What is your business/market growth?

This is a very niche segment and there is no specific data available. It should be considered as part of the overall health industry.

5. What is the significance of strong Mental health?

Mental health is as important as physical health. It is for long misconstrued and ignored the issue . The awareness that we are building with Serefe is that a) Mental health is an as urgent and important issue as to any other physical health issue and cannot be ignored; b) overall well-being is key to healthy living. Unlike the perception, psychologist/counsellor work closely with psychiatrists and compliment each other. The perception that any mental well-being issue can be dealt through only medicine/psychiatrists needs to change.

6. The pandemic has affected every sector. People have taken a deep hit, is there anything they can do at home?

As the COVID-19 lockdown continues to keep many of us at home, it can be easy to fall into bad habits. The detrimental psychological and physical effects of lockdown are well documented. There are a lot of things that can be done at home to help you keep your mind and body fit. they are listed below:

1. Have a structured routine/time-table as you had it before lockdown.
2. Include daily physical exercise
3. Try yoga/meditation
4. Learn a new language
5. Learn a new skill/hobby like dancing or painting
6. Read that long lost book that you wanted to read
7. Reorganise/declutter your house/room
8. Doodle.. it helps in stress and anxiety reduction
9. Video calls with friends and family over the weekend like your usual hangout
10. Maintain a gratitude journal every day

7. Why mental health should be the top priority for millennials and Gen Z?

It is a top priority for everyone regardless of generation. Millennials strive for a higher level of perfectionism & self-expectation in a very competitive era. This level of high achievement brings elevated expectations, which has shown to increase the rate of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation.

There are many possible reasons why more Millennials strive for perfection compared to older generations. Some of these include higher educational demands, lower job placement, comparing to others through social media, greater competitiveness with coworkers, having to perform at a higher level and the fear of losing out on a promotion, or worse, being laid off. While there is an increase in mental health issues among Millennials, this generation is also more willing to speak out about their struggles with mental illness than previous generations.

A 2015 study by American University found that Millennials grew up hearing about anxiety, depression, eating disorders and suicide, and they are more accepting of others with mental illness. Fighting against mental health stigma in the workplace is important as it can help pave the way for new employees. However, it is just as important to find a workplace that encourages mental health care, self-care and allows millennials to grow into successful employees. As millennials start to become leaders in the workforce, we can all hope that mental health will become more of a priority for all.

The 2020 Deloitte Global Millennial Survey, conducted both before and after the start of the pandemic, reveals that even before the pandemic, a large number of millennial and Gen Z workers were frequently suffering from stress and anxiety—common factors that contribute to mental health. Interestingly, stress levels fell for both generations in the second survey (or “pulse” survey) conducted between April and May 2020, possibly due to an increase in remote working and a general slow-down of life. However, despite the slight decline in anxiety during the pandemic, both parts of the Deloitte survey confirm that young people are highly stressed. These generations’ uncomfortably high levels of tension and unhappiness are likely byproducts of the uneasiness and pessimism exposed by last year’s Millennial Survey.

Climate change, the welfare of their families, financial stability, health care and long term career prospects were identified as huge concerns before the pandemic. Poor work/life balance and the inability to be their authentic selves also weighed on respondents. Because millennials and Gen Zs together account for most of the global workforce, their mental health issues present an enormous challenge for employers around the world. In 2016, a study published in The Lancet projected that in the world’s 36 largest countries, more than 12 billion days of lost productivity were attributable to depression and anxiety disorders every year at an estimated cost of US$925 billion — a figure that’s surely higher in 2020.

In India, more than three-quarters (77%) of millennials surveyed said stress is a legitimate reason to miss work and people in India were most likely to take off work for that reason during the preceding 12 months. The data not only suggests that many people believe mental health remains stigmatized in the workplace, but it also means employers probably are underestimating the impact of poor mental health on their productivity because they lack an accurate picture of the problem.

An overwrought workforce is a less productive one. Unfortunately, the minds of many millennials and Gen Zs are preoccupied with concerns at home, at work and in the world at large. This survey touched on some of the larger causes of stress, but so many more exist. Marriage and relationship problems, Ageing parents, Distracted coworkers, Elections, and now, COVID-19. The list is long.

8. What are your Post-Covid plans and Funding?

We launched during the Covid times as there could not have been better times to launch though we have been working on this platform for around a year now.

Currently, we are angel supported and in the process of raising funds to scale up & add up more areas like Career Counseling, Occupational Counselors, in addition to physical clinic centres around the country.