Gov’t urged to promote mental health

CEBU, Philippines - A clinical psychologist is calling the government to also promote mental health especially in the local level for this kind of service to be accessible even to the poor.

“I’ve always advoca-ted for the promotion of mental health. Psychological therapy and assessment should not only be accessible to those who can afford. I hope the government will also make it a part of their program. Dili lang physical health,” said clinical psychologist Anna Katrina Oaminal-Watin.

Watin said she finds it “alarming” to learn about schoolchildren caught having sex inside the campus, men having sexual intercourse with animals, and the increase of suicide cases in Cebu.

She said it is not normal for a child to have sex at an early age, nor for a person to have sex with an animal, therefore if a patient or his family already sees any symptom, if help is accessible, they can readily go for treatment.

Beastiality

Beastiality, Watin explained, is a condition a human being has when he has a sexual fantasy/relation, whether in thoughts or in acts, to an animal; almost the same to zoophilia, although the latter involves affection or feeling.

“Beastiality is considered a disorder. It is unusual, improper, a violation of animal rights. Ang animals wa ‘na mosugot,” she said.

Watin, who recently presented a paper called “Fantasy of the Flesh” in the annual conference on mental health, said beastiality is not common in the Philippines although she has already treated a few cases of it, like a patient who had sex with a chicken, and another with a pig.

But since Filipinos don’t usually talk with their sexual activities, weird or normal, there may be other cases outside those few already reported, she added.

The clinical psychologist said it is not also new, as in the old days there were artworks depicting people having sexual intercourse with animals.

Watin said that based from her study, the common cause why people have sex with animals is drugs.

Drugs, she explained, could change how a user sees, like those who had sex with a dog might have seen that dog as a woman. The other cause is the person’s low self-esteem, she said.

“Animals cannot complain of their sexual performance. There are people who are very particular with their sexual performance,” she said, adding that “our sexual desires are the bedrock of our personalities.”

Beastiality, Watin further said, is “not a sexual deviation,” that although “we respect differences,” the moral and the legal sides must also be considered. She said the act offends public moral, not legal, and more so, not healthy.

Hence, since most of the people, if not all, reportedly engaged in this type of sexual activity are from the marginal sector, who cannot afford to pay for a psychologist, it is “high time” the government hires the services of public psychologists, Watin pointed out. (FREEMAN)