Mental health counsellor Aanandita Vaghani on therapy, emotional awareness, and evolving mental health conversations in India.
Aanandita Vaghani
Mental health continues to be widely misunderstood and often overlooked, despite the profound role it plays in shaping how people think, feel, and function in their everyday lives. While conversations around emotional well-being are gradually becoming more visible, stigma, misinformation, and limited access to care still prevent many individuals from seeking the support they need.
Working to shift this narrative is Aanandita Vaghani, Founder and Mental Health Counsellor at UnFix Your Feelings, focused on making therapy more approachable, empathetic, and relevant to modern life. Through her work, she encourages people to view therapy not as a means of “fixing” themselves, but as a process of understanding emotions, unpacking patterns, and building healthier ways of coping with life’s challenges. Her approach places emphasis on emotional awareness, self-reflection, and resilience-helping individuals reconnect with themselves while navigating the pressures and complexities of contemporary living.
In this conversation, she shares her perspectives on how mental health care in India is evolving, the everyday emotional struggles people often overlook, and why creating safe, accessible spaces for therapy is essential to building greater self-awareness, resilience, and overall well-being.
Q1. Why did you feel there was a need for a space like UnFix Your Feelings in India?
When I trained and worked across New York and India, I kept noticing the same gap. Therapy felt intimidating. Clinical. Distant. It spoke in diagnostic language when what people were actually struggling with was heartbreak, pressure, loneliness, and self-doubt. Real, everyday human things. So many people hesitated to seek help because they didn’t see themselves as “serious enough.” They weren’t collapsing. They were functioning. But they were tired. Anxious. Overthinking. Carrying too much.
UnFix was born from that realization.
I wanted to build a space where therapy didn’t feel like a hospital room. A space that felt warm, conversational, and culturally aware. Where you could walk in and not feel like a case study. Where we focus less on labeling and more on understanding.
To me, healing is not about becoming someone new. It’s about coming back to who you were before fear, shame, and expectations took over.
Q2. How did your own experiences shape the philosophy behind the practice?
My work is deeply informed by my own life. Moving cities. Navigating ambition. Grief. Relationships. The pressure to be the “put together” one.
I know what it feels like to be high-functioning and still anxious. To look fine from the outside and feel overwhelmed inside. What that taught me is this: insight alone doesn’t change you. Awareness needs integration. You can intellectually understand your patterns and still feel stuck in them. That’s why my work blends structure with softness. CBT with attachment. Logic with emotion. We don’t just analyze thoughts. We learn how they show up in your body, in your relationships, in your everyday reactions. Therapy, for me, isn’t about giving advice. It’s about helping you build self-trust.
Q3. What does “therapy integrated into everyday life” mean to you?
It means therapy shouldn’t live only inside a 45 -minute session. It should show up when you’re spiraling before a presentation. When you’re fighting with your partner. When your mother says something that triggers you. When you’re lying in bed, overthinking.
Integration looks like this: You catch the thought. You ask - is this fear or fact? You respond differently. That’s therapy in action outside the therapy room.
I don’t want clients to depend on me. I want them to internalize the voice that grounds them. Therapy works when it becomes part of how you think, not just something you attend.
Q4. How do you see mental health conversations evolving in urban India?
Urban India is talking more, and that’s powerful. There’s more vocabulary now. Words like anxiety, boundaries, burnout are part of everyday language. But awareness is only step one.
What I’m noticing is a shift from “What’s wrong with me?” to “Why do I react this way?” That curiosity is growth. At the same time, we’re still navigating cultural complexity. Individualism versus family expectations. Therapy language versus generational values. The work now is making mental health conversations nuanced - not just trendy.
Q5. What was the vision behind opening the Delhi clinic?
I wanted a physical space that felt safe the moment you walked in. Delhi can feel fast, performative, and overwhelming. I wanted the clinic to feel like a pause. Warm lighting. Thoughtful design. A place where you could exhale.It was about building community. Workshops. Conversations. Group spaces. A reminder that you’re not the only one figuring life out.
Q6. What are some of the most common emotional struggles you see today?
High-functioning anxiety, Relationship insecurity, Fear of being left, Burnout disguised as ambition, Loneliness in socially active lives. A lot of people are externally successful but internally unsettled. There’s also a deep pressure to “be ahead.” Marriage timelines. Career timelines. Life milestones. Comparison is exhausting this generation. Underneath most of it is one core fear: Am I enough? That’s usually where the real work begins.
Q7. What misconceptions about therapy do you encounter most often?
That therapy is only for a crisis. It means you’re weak. The therapist will just tell you what to do. That one session should fix everything. In reality, therapy isn’t a quick solution. It’s a process of rewiring how you relate to yourself. Another big misconception is that therapy is about blaming your parents or cutting people off. It’s not. It’s about understanding patterns so you can choose differently.
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
