Speakers
Written in minutes, a diagnosis is carried for years. But it does not look the same for everyone.
In honour of World Mental Health Day, themed Lived Experiences Heard: Real Voices, Real Change, this panel brings together people living with mental health conditions and mental health professionals, some of whom are both. It treats experience as knowledge rather than as stories offered for inspiration, and asks what gets lost when a person is reduced to a label. What could be built if knowledge were made together rather than handed down?
For some, a condition hides behind functioning; for others, it is plainly visible and still not believed, and who gets heard is often decided as much by gender, class, and circumstance as by what is actually happening. Much of what keeps people going happens quietly, in small private repairs that are rarely asked about and too often corrected rather than understood. Panellists deliberate on how to truly co-construct knowledge, care plans, and policies with experts by experience, because you are the only continuous observer of your own life, and that is a kind of expertise.
In collaboration with:
Venue: Gallery
Speakers
Prabha S. Chandra
Dr. Prabha S. Chandra is a psychiatrist and former Director and Senior Professor of Psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, where she was also Dean of Behavioural Sciences and Head of the Department of Psychiatry. She is internationally recognised for her work in women’s and young people’s mental health. A Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK, she has advised the WHO, UNAIDS and the Government of India, is Editor-in-Chief of Archives of Women’s Mental Health, has 350 publications and 12 edited books.
Rohan Patankar
Rohan Patankar is an independent design researcher, strategist and connector working at the intersections of cities, equity, culture and belonging. Trained in architecture at SPA, Delhi, and in City Design and Social Science at LSE, London, he spent seven years at Quicksand, India’s leading design thinking and innovation consultancy. Between 2022–23, he served as Curatorial Research Fellow for the Bengaluru chapter of Mindscapes, an international Wellcome Trust programme on mental health and culture across four global cities. He brings human-centred design thinking and co-creation approaches to city making, health systems strengthening, and cultural and social impact.
Sheetal Lakhani
Sheetal Lakhani works at the intersection of youth mental health, lived experience and personality disorder. She is an assistant professor of psychology at Vidyashilp University and a clinical psychologist and supervisor. She is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Global Alliance for Prevention and Early Intervention for Personality Disorder. She facilitates LEAP 6D under the Aarohan Centre for Youth Mental Health. She has lived experience of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) and is currently in treatment, occupying the intersection of treating others and being treated herself.
Yamini Sharma
Yamini Sharma is a clinical psychologist and adjunct faculty at Vidyashilp University. Yamini likes the erratic rhythmicity of the mundane and morbid, bringing an interdisciplinary approach to literature and psychotherapy. They borrow from deconstruction and integrating psychodynamic and existential lenses, with a sharp focus on the nuances of experience and the language(s) of empathy.
You might also like
