Minu and Preeyam Budhia at Addlife Caring Minds. Picture: Pabitra Das

What is the Addlife Caring Minds Academia?

Minu Budhia (founder-director of AddLife Caring Minds and a psychotherapist): It is another wing. Till now, we had clinical and non-clinical wings. Now, we are having a third wing… Addlife Caring Minds Academia.

Preeyam Budhia: We are moving on from workshops with schools and other organisations, to a training academy. It is just like a university. Our faculty has drawn up a syllabus.

Why the Academia?

Minu: In this one year that Addlife Caring Minds has opened, I’ve noticed that those who are psychologists already, they are not very good at psychometrics. It is personality testing. We really want to empower them because psychometrics is needed for a lot of things like analysing a person’s behaviour, career counselling and treating developmental disorders. We have basic counselling courses in Calcutta, but not individual courses like Cognitive Behaviour Therapy or Psychometrics. Suranjan Das (Calcutta University’s vice-chancellor) also said the same thing. Those who pass out of the Academia will get certificates from Calcutta University.

Our faculty comprises trainers who have MPhils in clinical psychology. We will also get visiting professors like the assistant professor of psychiatry from the University of Ranchi. There will also be doctors like Pratima Chowdhury who will be conducting a few classes. We will be having lots of group discussions, interactive classes and mock sessions. We will be giving them projects. There will be internship opportunities (for CBT, Basic Counselling and Psychometrics which are affiliated with CU) . We also have a well-stocked library.

Preeyam: Calcutta University’s team will do the audit and make sure that it is running the way it should.

Minu: Calcutta University’s certificate will add value to the whole thing. For those who cannot pay, we will have a quota for two or three students. We are starting with 10 students in each class. If we get many applications, we will split them into batches. The basic counselling course is all about counselling yourself. It is like counselling the counsellor. That will have to be on a one-to-one basis because suppose you are taking the course, you will not open up in a group. If you don’t cleanse yourself, how will you counsel others? You have to be emotionally stable first.

Preeyam, what is your role?

Preeyam: I head the business development wing… all the marketing, PR, HR and all things creative. My role here is to support the vision and grow and expand the business in terms of services we offer, the quality of workshops we do and also expand geographically. We got BSI-ISO 9001: 2008 certified two months back, which is a big cherry on the cake.

Minu: The academy was her idea....

Preeyam: Since my realm is business development, I keep thinking what new thing I can add every six months.

Minu: We should have new things in the pipeline, because we are doing so well with the clinic…

Preeyam: The good part is, we have two leaders here. She (Minu) supervises the clinical wing and the training and development wing is what I look after. So, our roles are also separate.

Minu: I don’t interfere in her work.

So, do mother and daughter have arguments?

Preeyam: We are both pretty accommodating that way!

Minu: She is young and more energetic and pushy in marketing. She is more aggressive!

Preeyam: In a positive way! You need to be aggressive in marketing.

Preeyam, do you love working here or is this more pressure because it is family after all?

Preeyam: I love working here! I am a very black-and-white person in general.

Minu: Now, she is making me dependant on her! Till six months back, I was managing everything. Now, she has value-added so much!

Preeyam: I was more involved in Patton earlier. It’s not easy to completely give up my role in Patton and come here. My dad (Sanjay Budhia) needs me there as well. Now, it’s about 85 per cent here and 15 per cent at Patton.

How do you deal with stress?

Minu: I don’t have stress! I take everything in my stride.

Preeyam: On Sundays, I am like so happy that tomorrow it’s a Monday! I actually look forward to it. I get stressed when there isn’t too much work. What actually completely de-stresses me is my swim at Calcutta Swimming Club. I also play badminton.

And, future plans?

Preeyam: Maybe having smaller centres in the city and having such a centre in Tier-II cities.

Minu: We have thought of introducing research and other courses at the Academia. We are thinking of franchisees too.

Saionee Chakraborty