Does therapy work for Indians?

In India, however, the self rarely exists in isolation. Identity is negotiated through family, community, and social obligation. And so, a more complex question emerges: Are we just importing therapeutic models faster than we are adapting them? And if therapy is not one-size-fits-all, what happens when the most commonly prescribed method does not fully translate to the cultural realities of Indian life?

Devyanshi Jalan prefers family counselling because it’s the victim that goes to therapy and not the person who causes trauma; (right) Divya Dhanuka found the process of finding a therapist harrowing

Over the course of eight years, Divya Dhanuka has seen over five therapists. “I come from a very dysfunctional household. I’ve been actively suicidal since about the seventh grade,” says the 21-year-old. 

“When you tell people that you’re suicidal, they often tell you, ‘You should seek therapy,’ and they think their job is done. What they don’t understand is how harrowing the process of seeking that therapy actually is,” says Dhanuka, “The more therapists I would go to, the more I would have to share my life story, the more I had to go through it again, the more panic attacks I would get.”

Dhanuka is currently pursuing law from the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. Her college provides counselling services for students. “Therapists often start by asking, ‘Tell me about your family.’ But I won’t ever tell a stranger about my family trauma. This person is a complete stranger to me,” says Dhanuka, “One time, I told a therapist that I have dyscalculia and she laughed at me, ‘Autism and learning disorders are so common these days.’ One asked me, ‘Why don’t you come to the point? Why are you so avoidant?’ She got angry at me for not being able to open up. It made me question my self-worth even more. Am I so broken that even a professional cannot fix it?”

In an interview to Nikhil Kamath in 2024, actor Ranbir Kapoor said, “I have tried therapy before my father got sick. I don’t think it worked for me for two reasons. Firstly, because I couldn’t express myself completely to the therapist. Secondly, the therapist, in some way, was teaching me how to manipulate life.”

Eventually Dhanuka was able to find a therapist that fits. But after a while, just the act of therapy got tiring. “Therapy is not a magic potion, where suddenly your therapist says something and your life is fixed. Your therapist won’t give solutions to your problems. They will ask, ‘Why do you feel this way?’ It’s an exercise to get to know your own thoughts, a to-and-fro between two people. I would understand the things he said to me three weeks later,” says Dhanuka, “It’s a lot of work, a lot of self-reflection, and it’s tiring.”

She has taken a little break from therapy. “To keep me sane, I delved deeper into rock and metal music. Listening to people scream in my ears makes me feel relatable to the singer. It helps me get through my days,” says Dhanuka, “If I have to actually sit with my feelings and thoughts, that won’t happen unless someone guides me into it. Otherwise, my brain can be a horrible place to navigate on my own. The process of seeking help works if the help seeks you back. Maybe on some days I don’t need to rationalise my thoughts when I’m already down, maybe then a therapist with just a healthy presence would help me better.”

CBT asks patients to lay it all bare. But in India, where family dynamics are deeply private and shaped by hierarchy, trust is not automatically extended to strangers. Moreover, CBT places responsibility on the individual. For someone navigating structural pressures such as academic expectations and family roles, distress cannot always be reduced to faulty thinking patterns. 

Often, we treat growth as an individual responsibility. You grow as a person and if those around you can’t grow with you, you draw a boundary and move on. But in India, how does one draw a boundary with your parents if you live with them? 21-year-old Devyanshi Jalan states, “I prefer family counselling because most of the time, it’s the victim that goes to therapy and not the person who caused the trauma.”

“Kota is where I experienced my first depressive episode,” says Jalan. An academic star all her life, Jalan was preparing for JEE exams at the time. “I grew up being a kind of counsellor to my own family, mediating between their issues. I had to grow up before my time,” Jalan says, “Even in Kota I couldn’t escape the ups-and-downs in my family. It all came back to me. My academics suffered which made things worse.”

Jalan floated the idea of seeking therapy to her parents. “My father was totally against it. Eventually he came around.” Jalan decided to prioritise her mental health. She dropped out of her college and moved back home full time. “I started seeking therapy regularly. I finally understood how my mind worked and why it was stuck on those issues. My therapist taught me how to deal with situations when my parents say something I don’t agree with,” says Jalan.

She decided that to really fix the situation she needs to bring in her parents as well. “I wasn’t able to convince my father to go to therapy, but if he had, I’m sure it would have made a huge difference,” she says. About her own relationship with her mother now, Jalan says, “My mother used to repeat things a thousand times over which irritated me. She liked to ask around and be very involved in my life, and I didn’t like that. Because she heard it from a therapist, she saw that my asks weren’t unreasonable. She understood that I need boundaries and space. Things got much better. Her relationship with my father improved a lot. She is now more at peace now, I would say.”

Jalan dropped out of engineering and is pursuing a degree in psychology now. She also runs an Instagram page (@_decodewithdee) about psychological tips, facts, myths, and sharing her positive outlook on life.

The roots of psychology

PhD candidate at the University of Virginia studying community psychology, Anshita Singh explains the evolution of psychology, “Modern psychology emerged during a time of racial hierarchy; many early concepts were rooted in eugenics and the belief that white people were superior to other races. Much of psychology was built on ‘WEIRD’ (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic) populations, so applying it to collectivistic societies loses nuance.

Anshita Singh

“Today, psychology often asks how to keep people productive, boiling individuals down to machines within capitalistic systems that extract labour while pathologising distress. Instead of placing responsibility only on individuals, we should think ecologically by addressing power structures. 

“A first step would be thinking about psychology in a more interdisciplinary way. In my research, I draw from sociological and feminist theories, and community psychology. Many of these ideas focus on prevention rather than cure. How do we structurally support people before distress escalates into mental illness? 

“For example, in Baltimore, crime rates reduced significantly because the city invested in community centres, food banks, and community support organisations. Instead of investing only in policing or post-crime counselling, This is an example of prevention instead of profiting from people’s distress afterward.”

What the West doesn’t get

Counselling psychologist Ipsita Chatterjee explains, “A lot of therapy focuses on identifying dysfunctional cognitions and making them functional. But many times, there are real systemic problems because of how society functions. Especially in India, which is way more collectivist than the West. It’s not always your thoughts that are the problem here.”

Ipsita Chatterjee

She explains with an example, “Many people in Mumbai risk their lives daily in local trains. We read news about deaths frequently, but it has been normalised. Just reaching your workplace puts your nervous system under immense stress. Then pay parity may exist, you have to please others, and stay late without any overtime pay. No matter how much you earn, buying a house still feels impossible. In this scenario, there is no distortion in thought pattern but rather, a larger issue in the system.

“This is where narrative therapy comes in. It involves acknowledging and validating what’s happening. Clients learn to attune to themselves, identify dominant discourses around them, and find alternate narratives they can participate in. It’s about changing the narrative.”

“CBT has made valuable contributions, but it cannot be the only approach,” she says, “Somatic work helps clients notice bodily limits and regulation. Expressive arts and arts-based therapy help regulate the nervous system. The arts allow expression without confrontation. When immersed, people sometimes enter trance-like states where clarity and insight emerge. I also work with child survivors of trafficking who did not want to talk. In such contexts, people are tired of talking. Body-based and arts-based approaches become powerful tools.” Adopting Buddhist philosophies has helped her personally, “If you are mindful, if you practice detachment, you’ll be regulated automatically.”

How education is changing and adapting

Counselling psychologist and educator at SNDT’s MMT Shah College, Kruttika Dixit, explains how Indian syllabi are trying to make therapy models fit better.  “According to the new education policy, there is increasing emphasis on Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS), which brings Indian philosophical traditions into education. During my own training, we studied multicultural counselling skills. Even though counselling models such as Egan’s model come from Western frameworks, students are trained to adapt them culturally.”

Kruttika Dixit

In India, people largely seek therapy to resolve relational dynamics, “be it family conflicts, marriage distress, or parent-child obligations. All of these require systemic change, not just individual cognitive restructuring,” she says, “This is why many adults who seek therapy individually don’t see results.”

Another difference she notes is, “In Western contexts, not setting boundaries may be labelled people-pleasing,” she continues, “In India, respect and social roles complicate this. For example, career decisions often involve family influence. One may listen respectfully to elders while also asserting personal choices by explaining how decisions affect one’s own future.” She recommends, “Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT); it focuses on mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation and interpersonal effectiveness — which helps in better relational dynamics.”

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