Watching Lakshmi Venkatraman speak with the auto driver, the other day was enthralling. We were heading to a meeting together. The morning’s peak hour traffic was true to its definition. A biker crossed our path, in a rush to reach his destination. This evoked an expletive from our auto driver. And set the ball rolling. It started with Lakshmi acknowledging the comment. As the conversation progressed, I noticed that she was asking, what I thought were…

Empowering persons with psychoses is a much-discussed topic the world over. Yet, where are we today?

As part of a dream-building activity at a SALT workshop, a group of us, all psychiatrists, dared to dream. One day - may this be the way!

As doctors, we dream for you for you……

We the doctors, say you have Psychoses – 

for you a dreaded frightening…

Ms P is a single woman, 26 years in age. A software professional, has had a steady work profile. She is academically very good.

I met her at a wedding reception of common friend. When she realised, I was a mental health professional, very hesitantly, she told me, “I don’t love myself. Is that wrong?” It is not unusual for a psychiatrist to be asked “mental health related” questions in a social setting. So, I geared myself to an extended conversation. However, instead of probing on the…

The PIECES project supported by NIHR , UK is  a very fertile ground for new learning!. Indeed the absolutely new SALT methodology (for me, personally) is an  eye-opener. In my experience, asking people to speak about the most important and positive moment(s) in their lives works seems to be practical conversation starter. Thanks to the gentle nudging as part of training by Rituu Nanda and Kauser Khan, I am in process of learning to use this very vibrant methodology in conversations with…