Strong Men Ask for Help: Because Even the Strongest Mariners Need a Safe Harbour

DMET Club Sunday Citadel with Celebrity Psychologist & Mental Wellness Coach Prerna Dua

Sunday, 23 August 2026 | 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM IST

Life at sea teaches you to be strong.

A mariner learns to face rough weather, long periods away from home, demanding watches, machinery failures, emergencies and enormous professional responsibility. When circumstances become difficult, the instinct is often simple:

Stay calm. Solve the problem. Keep going.

But what happens when the problem isn't with the ship?

What happens when the storm is within?

This Sunday, DMET Club  brings an important conversation to the maritime community through its Sunday Citadel series:

STRONG MEN ASK FOR HELP

Because Even the Strongest Mariners Need a Safe Harbour

The special interactive session will be conducted by Prerna Dua, Celebrity Psychologist & Mental Wellness Coach, and will address an issue that often remains unspoken within the maritime profession — mental health and the reluctance to ask for help.

The Unspoken Pressure of Being a Mariner

Mariners operate in an environment unlike most professions.

Months away from family, irregular sleep, demanding watch schedules, professional hierarchy, isolation, responsibility for expensive vessels and cargo, difficult interpersonal situations onboard and uncertainty about what is happening back home can all create significant psychological pressure.

For senior officers, there can be an additional burden.

The Captain is expected to have an answer.

The Chief Engineer is expected to solve the problem.

The senior officer is expected to remain composed for everyone else.

But who does the person everyone depends upon turn to when he needs support himself?

That is the conversation DMET Club wants to begin.

Asking for Help Is Not Weakness

One of the biggest barriers to mental wellbeing can be the belief that acknowledging emotional difficulty is a sign of weakness.

It isn't.

If an abnormal vibration appears in machinery, an engineer investigates it.

If weather conditions deteriorate, the bridge team doesn't ignore the warning.

If equipment shows signs of failure, preventive maintenance is carried out before the situation becomes critical.

Why should we treat the human mind differently?

Seeking support before reaching breaking point isn't weakness.

It is awareness.

It is responsibility.

And sometimes, it is courage.

What Will We Discuss?

During this special Sunday Citadel, Coach Prerna Dua will explore issues particularly relevant to mariners, including:

• Why strong and successful people can find it difficult to ask for help

• Understanding stress, anxiety, loneliness and emotional exhaustion

• The psychological pressures unique to life at sea

• Why Captains, Chief Engineers and senior officers may suffer silently

• Recognising when a colleague onboard may not be okay

• How to start a conversation with someone who appears distressed

• How senior officers should respond when a junior approaches them for support

• Managing family and relationship pressures while sailing

• Breaking the stigma surrounding psychologists and professional mental-health support

• Understanding that vulnerability and leadership can coexist

• Knowing when ordinary stress may require professional intervention

Most importantly, this is not intended to be a lecture about mental illness.

It is intended to be an open conversation about being human in a profession that constantly expects people to be strong.

Look Beyond “Everything Okay?”

Sometimes the person sitting beside us at the mess table is fighting a battle nobody knows about.

Instead of simply asking:

“Everything okay?”

perhaps we need to learn to ask:

“You don't seem yourself lately. Do you want to talk?”

And when someone does talk, perhaps our first responsibility isn't to give advice.

Sometimes it is simply to listen.

A Message to Every Mariner

You can command a vessel and still need someone to talk to.

You can be a Chief Engineer capable of solving the most complicated machinery problem and still feel overwhelmed.

You can have decades of experience at sea and still experience fear, loneliness or uncertainty.

You can be responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars of assets and still need emotional support.

None of these things make you weaker.

The same professionalism with which mariners maintain their ships should extend to maintaining their own mental wellbeing.

Because strength isn't about pretending that nothing affects you.

Strength is recognising when something is affecting you — and doing something about it.

Join the DMET Club Sunday Citadel

Session: STRONG MEN ASK FOR HELPTagline: Because Even the Strongest Mariners Need a Safe Harbour Speaker: Prerna Dua Celebrity Psychologist & Mental Wellness Coach

Sunday, 23 August 202612:00 PM – 1:00 PM IST

Join the Webinar through DMET Club

Supported by ZIVANO, A curated real estate platform by DMET Club

One Conversation Can Make a Difference

DMET Club believes our community should be there for mariners not only professionally and financially, but also during the moments when someone simply needs another person to listen.

This Sunday, let us begin a conversation that perhaps the maritime community should have started long ago.

Strong Men Ask for Help.

Because Even the Strongest Mariners Need a Safe Harbour.