Books
Barriers to recovery from psychosis: a peer investigation of psychiatric subjectivation, 2022
This book inaugurates the field of Mad Studies in the Indian subcontinent investigating the barri... more This book inaugurates the field of Mad Studies in the Indian subcontinent investigating the barriers to recovery from the perspective of "patients" and caregivers.
Offering a radical critique of the mental health system, it questions why the phenomenon of recovery from serious mental health issues is not more widespread. Drawing from narratives of "patients", evidence from lived experiences around the globe and literature on recovery in psychiatry, mental health legislations and policies, it establishes the hitherto silenced voice of the "patient" as having testimonial viability, via an emancipatory scholarship. It highlights the repeated marginalization of "patients" and the identity prejudice they experience in day-to-day situations as a form of epistemic violence. The book examines the barriers to recovery through an interdisciplinary investigation, scrutinizing relationships between individuals and institutions at interpersonal, intersocial and global levels.
The book will be of interest to researchers and scholars of psychiatry, psychology, anthropology, sociology, disability studies, Mad Studies, law and policy, cultural studies, mental health, medicine as well as general readers.
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Peer Reviewed 1: Mental Health/Illness
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Beresford, P., and Russo, J. (eds). The Routledge Handbook of Mad Studies - Critical international perspectives on doing Mad Studies. Abingdon: Routledge. , 2022
‘Mad’ as an form of resistance is not easily distinguishable from ‘mad’ as label in the Global S... more ‘Mad’ as an form of resistance is not easily distinguishable from ‘mad’ as label in the Global South, there being a proliferation of words that represent ‘madness’ in a prejudicial sense. To resist psychiatry’s increasing footprint and claims to ‘treatment’ by simply importing tools of resistance from the Global North, without responding to local realities will not prove to be helpful in societies where knowledge, access, rights and freedoms are routinely denied- not just to those seen ‘mad’. The idea of taking pride in what appears to be an essentialist claim does not resonate with everyone unequivocally: there is a need to look at other ways without taking pride in a stigmatizing identity. This chapter calls to move beyond identity politics embedded in linguistic categories, recognize resource differences inherent in the world, who gets to speak for whom and acknowledge class privilege among those who are audible. The author urges to build an emancipatory resistance by conceding to differences between the Global North and South, building culturally responsive tools, instead of simply transposing ideas developed elsewhere on societies lacking an ability to critique authority, rhetoric and discrimination.
Keywords: identity politics, emancipatory resistance, stigma, essentialism, cultural relevance
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In Misra, G. (2018). Psychosocial Interventions in Health and Well-being. Springer, 2018
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Economic and Political Weekly, 2019
“Peers” are a resource that can be tapped into to support a wide variety of people in the mental ... more “Peers” are a resource that can be tapped into to support a wide variety of people in the mental health system. These are people who have lived experiences of recovery in mental health. This kind of support offers the peers a meaningful work opportunity, financial and social empowerment, and consolidates their recoveries. It also helps those who are currently suffering by enabling them to experience a peer’s caring and supportive assistance, patient listening and helpful advice in view of the hurried and professional approaches of mental health professionals.
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Economic and Political Weekly, 2019
The question that needs to be asked is, how many of those being treated for mental illness are re... more The question that needs to be asked is, how many of those being treated for mental illness are recovering? Does the current treatment regimen help people with recovery, or is it only a “treatment” option with an entry and no exit point? Psychiatric professionals need to focus on recovery
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Economic and Political Weekly, 2019
First, should someone represent others in the public eye when they are evoking a stigmatising, po... more First, should someone represent others in the public eye when they are evoking a stigmatising, potentially disabling identity label against another person? Is this an ethical act? Second, is a mental illness diagnosis at any point in a person’s life a lifelong indictment that renders them incapable of accomplishing anything ever again, especially in politics? Third, is mental illness a permanent feature of someone’s life, wherein there is no chance of recovery or cure?
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Journal of Ethics in Mental Health, Jul 15, 2019
This article traces my endeavors to enlist research participants in my doctoral research. I inter... more This article traces my endeavors to enlist research participants in my doctoral research. I interviewed both people who like me hold a ‘psychosis’ history, as well as their direct caregivers, who were most often family members. My research is embedded in an emancipatory episteme, and focuses on understanding the barriers to recovery in the psy-medico-legal landscape prevalent in India. During my participant recruitment process, I encountered ‘silence’ of diverse sorts and with this article I attempt to deconstruct that silence. At the individual level, I was met with silence by individuals and their caregivers who were reluctant to be interviewed due to various forms of stigma, paternalism, and their hesitancy to question psychiatric authority. At the organizational level, NGOs were largely unsupportive of my work because my research queries psychiatry and its motives, and this undermines the powers of dominant psychiatric discourses. Central to my argument is that as a ‘peer researcher,’ my position destabilizes common held truths about ex-patients. Thus, being an ‘insider’ researcher actually hindered my access to some potential participants because I was understood as an ‘exception’ who should not be engaged with. I end by exploring the asymmetrical power relations between researchers and those we research, and the potential that emancipatory approaches bring to mental health social change.
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Whether someone can utilize the transformative potential of the arts , for their own healing is ... more Whether someone can utilize the transformative potential of the arts , for their own healing is explored through this article. Building a case for the inclusion of the performing and visual arts in their varying forms toward rehabilitation and recovery support for those suffering from serious mental illnesses, the author also suggests that the arts be utilized by people for their own healing. Broad guidelines are laid down for those who would like to do so.
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Medico Friend Circle Bulletin , 2015
The label of mental illness is a demonizing indictment which gives power to one group [of profess... more The label of mental illness is a demonizing indictment which gives power to one group [of professionals] over another [patients and caregivers], by way of its ability to pathologize human behavior. What is the basis of this nomenclature and how accurately can it map human distress? Does this categorization serve any purpose besides creating categories that then become ‘treatable’ via pharmaceutical interventions? Does it really end up treating people and help them reclaim their lives in any manner? From a social constructionist perspective this paper offers a critique of the current DSM based knowledge, and questions the hegemony of professionals in dealing with situations beyond their control.
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Psychological Studies, Apr 2011
The communal construction of mental illness
makes recovery a daunting challenge since society la... more The communal construction of mental illness
makes recovery a daunting challenge since society largely
perceives the psychiatrically ill as ‘deficient’. Not only does
one have to deal with the illness itself, one additionally has
to deal with the perpetual stigma associated with the
labeling, increasing the personal consequences of these
illnesses. In my own journey through mental illness, I have
repeatedly tried to construct for myself those structures
which would help me become stable and empower me from
within rather than rob me of my sense of self. This paper is
a small expression of that narrative.
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Canadian Journal of Music Therapy, Jan 2014
I offer an autoethnographic inquiry into the process of finding one’s way out of the maze of ment... more I offer an autoethnographic inquiry into the process of finding one’s way out of the maze of mental illness; it is an examination of how in the course of creating music to express my suffering from bipolar disorder, I found a poetic and musical expression for my soul. Making music gradually moved my focus away from illness toward imagination and creativity and brought about a major shift in my positioning in terms of my identity, helping me to construct the selfhood of an artist rather than that of an ill person. This transformation is explored in the context of India’s music and spiritual tradition and the Western framework of resource-oriented music therapy, an approach that prioritizes participant empowerment and uses music for self-care.
Keywords: music therapy, poetry, bipolar disorder, narrative reconstruction, autoethnography, rehabilitation, self-healing, Indian ragas
Citation: Sharma, P. (2014). Making song, making sanity- Recovery from Bipolar disorder. Canadian Journal of Music Therapy, 20(1), 2014, pp.65-84
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World Cultural Psychiatry Research Review, 2015
This self-narrative examines the various engagements that changed this researcher from being an... more This self-narrative examines the various engagements that changed this researcher from being an ill person to exploring her musical and creative self. This article follows the method of auto-ethnographic inquiry in which evidences from personal history, which coincided with 18 years with bipolar disorder is shared from internet sites by the researcher, where such links are in a public domain, for anyone to access. In this span of time, she worked with many aspects of music, to the point that from a state of emotional chaos there emerged an order. Examining creativity as an idea and corroborating from Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration, this article illustrates how the current researcher is no longer someone living with a serious mental illness, but a person who got healed and became an artist, researcher and entrepreneur. While some of this is ascribed to the divergent thinking that is attributed to bipolar disorder, she explicates how one musical engagement led to another and brought about her recovery, though none of it had started with a therapeutic goal. What constitutes recovery in mental illness is also elaborated .
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Peer Reviewed- II- Music Psychology
Psychological Studies, Jan 2008
Music is often considered as an instrument for entertainment. This paper examines the healing p... more Music is often considered as an instrument for entertainment. This paper examines the healing power of music in Indian and Western traditions. Bringing evidence from diverse sources it is argued that it has deep influence on the psyche of people. It also helps one to realize higher goals in life.
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Psychological Studies, Journal of the National Academy of Psychology, India, Vol. 50., No. 2 &3 2005, 2005
"This paper is an attempt to trace two aspects of creative artists: ‘Bildungsroman’ (novel of for... more "This paper is an attempt to trace two aspects of creative artists: ‘Bildungsroman’ (novel of formation) and ‘Künstlerroman’ (novel of the artist). The subject of the former is the development of the protagonist’s mind and character, in the passage from childhood through varied experiences- and often through spiritual crisis-into maturity, which usually involves recognition of one’s identity and role in the world. The latter, the ‘artist novel’ represents the growth of an artist from childhood into the stage of maturity that signalizes the recognition of the protagonist’s artistic destiny and mastery of an artistic craft.""
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Non Journal Publications - kindly click the links
Cafe Dissensus, Disability Arts and Culture (Issue 17), Aug 14, 2015
In this short piece, I attempt to share about ghazal as the poetic genre, whose contribution to m... more In this short piece, I attempt to share about ghazal as the poetic genre, whose contribution to my healing was immense, unforeseen and of an order that was unimaginable, for me. It was a significant star in a bigger constellation of ideas and engagements that lead to my ultimate recovery, from a debilitating, chronic case of Bipolar disorder.
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This paper is attached as a link to the blog where it is posted. Kindly open this tab fully to ac... more This paper is attached as a link to the blog where it is posted. Kindly open this tab fully to access it. https://inprateeksha.wordpress.com/2015/01/29/seeing-the-full-elephant-spirit-science-religion-and-psychosis/
In the light of some of the comments I have been receiving in response to this article, I will have to write about- why psychosis cannot be handled by anyone, why psychiatry will be necessarily required to deal with spiritual crises and why more people do not and cannot recover from psychotic breakdowns. However, I do not know in what frame of time I will be able to write this. And of course psychosis is NOT THE ONLY manifestation of human suffering, though definitely the most 'explosive'- so how does one explain the rest of the 'illnesses' which are non-psychotic. And what should be the role of psychiatry in that?
I will need to tackle these questions in future writing. But rest assured most people cannot and will not recover from psychotic breakdowns, because they would be caught between the polar opposites of headiness that psychosis brings and the depression that follows due to the energy then coming to its ebb. This cyclical nature of ebbs and flow cannot be easily handled, much less harnessed. It asks for years and years of labour -physical, spiritual, emotional, introversion of the senses (just a rank opposite to the expansion that psychosis is causing). It is a very difficult path and nobody NOBODY, can tread it without much guidance and humility. This humility itself will not enter into people's words and actions and repeatedly I find (on many locations) people insisting about their uniqueness and the unique paths they are following and how they will create their. In reality they can NEVER create any path alone, because there is nothing unique in any of this- just a great cycle, which makes them believe they are 'different' from the rest. Let the fools believe it- the wise ones will learn to be humble and with folded hands learn at the feet and classrooms of many a teacher.
So a spiritual emergence will lead to a spiritual emergency- and land bewildered people at the doors of psychiatrists, who are equally baffled by it and they just know how to suppress the experiences- via anti-psychotics of various sorts. Cannot blame them- they are only doing what they can, with whatever tools they can. And they will prevail because it takes much shorter time to get a psychiatrist (professionally) ready than it takes for a spiritual master to come along who knows the inside out of this spiritual emergence. And of course because matters of the spirit are considered of no significance, in our society where the supremacy of science, no matter how ethically deployed or comprehended, is beyond challenge- in a vast majority of people, more people will remain permanent prisoners of this split of the consciousness.
So I had to add this little bit for now- not to beat the hell out of psychiatry but to present the case for why there will be no alternative to it in a short run. (Kindly read the article directly on the blog itself)
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The Hindu, Nov 23, 2014
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https://inprateeksha.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/robin-williams-cultures-of-silence-and-mental-angui... more https://inprateeksha.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/robin-williams-cultures-of-silence-and-mental-anguish-which-way-to-look/
Cultures of silence, which teach men to hide their sufferings and despair, becoming ‘real men’ will continue and take many a life and a big toll, unless men and women both realize that a life in which we balance our masculine and feminine energies, polarities and sensibilities is a life which will keep us safe, humane and centered. Isn’t it time to question these cultures of silence that want men to remain emotionally frozen and robotic?
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Digital Opportunity - By OneWorld South Asia, Jan 22, 2014
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Offering a radical critique of the mental health system, it questions why the phenomenon of recovery from serious mental health issues is not more widespread. Drawing from narratives of "patients", evidence from lived experiences around the globe and literature on recovery in psychiatry, mental health legislations and policies, it establishes the hitherto silenced voice of the "patient" as having testimonial viability, via an emancipatory scholarship. It highlights the repeated marginalization of "patients" and the identity prejudice they experience in day-to-day situations as a form of epistemic violence. The book examines the barriers to recovery through an interdisciplinary investigation, scrutinizing relationships between individuals and institutions at interpersonal, intersocial and global levels.
The book will be of interest to researchers and scholars of psychiatry, psychology, anthropology, sociology, disability studies, Mad Studies, law and policy, cultural studies, mental health, medicine as well as general readers.
Keywords: identity politics, emancipatory resistance, stigma, essentialism, cultural relevance
makes recovery a daunting challenge since society largely
perceives the psychiatrically ill as ‘deficient’. Not only does
one have to deal with the illness itself, one additionally has
to deal with the perpetual stigma associated with the
labeling, increasing the personal consequences of these
illnesses. In my own journey through mental illness, I have
repeatedly tried to construct for myself those structures
which would help me become stable and empower me from
within rather than rob me of my sense of self. This paper is
a small expression of that narrative.
Keywords: music therapy, poetry, bipolar disorder, narrative reconstruction, autoethnography, rehabilitation, self-healing, Indian ragas
Citation: Sharma, P. (2014). Making song, making sanity- Recovery from Bipolar disorder. Canadian Journal of Music Therapy, 20(1), 2014, pp.65-84
In the light of some of the comments I have been receiving in response to this article, I will have to write about- why psychosis cannot be handled by anyone, why psychiatry will be necessarily required to deal with spiritual crises and why more people do not and cannot recover from psychotic breakdowns. However, I do not know in what frame of time I will be able to write this. And of course psychosis is NOT THE ONLY manifestation of human suffering, though definitely the most 'explosive'- so how does one explain the rest of the 'illnesses' which are non-psychotic. And what should be the role of psychiatry in that?
I will need to tackle these questions in future writing. But rest assured most people cannot and will not recover from psychotic breakdowns, because they would be caught between the polar opposites of headiness that psychosis brings and the depression that follows due to the energy then coming to its ebb. This cyclical nature of ebbs and flow cannot be easily handled, much less harnessed. It asks for years and years of labour -physical, spiritual, emotional, introversion of the senses (just a rank opposite to the expansion that psychosis is causing). It is a very difficult path and nobody NOBODY, can tread it without much guidance and humility. This humility itself will not enter into people's words and actions and repeatedly I find (on many locations) people insisting about their uniqueness and the unique paths they are following and how they will create their. In reality they can NEVER create any path alone, because there is nothing unique in any of this- just a great cycle, which makes them believe they are 'different' from the rest. Let the fools believe it- the wise ones will learn to be humble and with folded hands learn at the feet and classrooms of many a teacher.
So a spiritual emergence will lead to a spiritual emergency- and land bewildered people at the doors of psychiatrists, who are equally baffled by it and they just know how to suppress the experiences- via anti-psychotics of various sorts. Cannot blame them- they are only doing what they can, with whatever tools they can. And they will prevail because it takes much shorter time to get a psychiatrist (professionally) ready than it takes for a spiritual master to come along who knows the inside out of this spiritual emergence. And of course because matters of the spirit are considered of no significance, in our society where the supremacy of science, no matter how ethically deployed or comprehended, is beyond challenge- in a vast majority of people, more people will remain permanent prisoners of this split of the consciousness.
So I had to add this little bit for now- not to beat the hell out of psychiatry but to present the case for why there will be no alternative to it in a short run. (Kindly read the article directly on the blog itself)
Cultures of silence, which teach men to hide their sufferings and despair, becoming ‘real men’ will continue and take many a life and a big toll, unless men and women both realize that a life in which we balance our masculine and feminine energies, polarities and sensibilities is a life which will keep us safe, humane and centered. Isn’t it time to question these cultures of silence that want men to remain emotionally frozen and robotic?
Offering a radical critique of the mental health system, it questions why the phenomenon of recovery from serious mental health issues is not more widespread. Drawing from narratives of "patients", evidence from lived experiences around the globe and literature on recovery in psychiatry, mental health legislations and policies, it establishes the hitherto silenced voice of the "patient" as having testimonial viability, via an emancipatory scholarship. It highlights the repeated marginalization of "patients" and the identity prejudice they experience in day-to-day situations as a form of epistemic violence. The book examines the barriers to recovery through an interdisciplinary investigation, scrutinizing relationships between individuals and institutions at interpersonal, intersocial and global levels.
The book will be of interest to researchers and scholars of psychiatry, psychology, anthropology, sociology, disability studies, Mad Studies, law and policy, cultural studies, mental health, medicine as well as general readers.
Keywords: identity politics, emancipatory resistance, stigma, essentialism, cultural relevance
makes recovery a daunting challenge since society largely
perceives the psychiatrically ill as ‘deficient’. Not only does
one have to deal with the illness itself, one additionally has
to deal with the perpetual stigma associated with the
labeling, increasing the personal consequences of these
illnesses. In my own journey through mental illness, I have
repeatedly tried to construct for myself those structures
which would help me become stable and empower me from
within rather than rob me of my sense of self. This paper is
a small expression of that narrative.
Keywords: music therapy, poetry, bipolar disorder, narrative reconstruction, autoethnography, rehabilitation, self-healing, Indian ragas
Citation: Sharma, P. (2014). Making song, making sanity- Recovery from Bipolar disorder. Canadian Journal of Music Therapy, 20(1), 2014, pp.65-84
In the light of some of the comments I have been receiving in response to this article, I will have to write about- why psychosis cannot be handled by anyone, why psychiatry will be necessarily required to deal with spiritual crises and why more people do not and cannot recover from psychotic breakdowns. However, I do not know in what frame of time I will be able to write this. And of course psychosis is NOT THE ONLY manifestation of human suffering, though definitely the most 'explosive'- so how does one explain the rest of the 'illnesses' which are non-psychotic. And what should be the role of psychiatry in that?
I will need to tackle these questions in future writing. But rest assured most people cannot and will not recover from psychotic breakdowns, because they would be caught between the polar opposites of headiness that psychosis brings and the depression that follows due to the energy then coming to its ebb. This cyclical nature of ebbs and flow cannot be easily handled, much less harnessed. It asks for years and years of labour -physical, spiritual, emotional, introversion of the senses (just a rank opposite to the expansion that psychosis is causing). It is a very difficult path and nobody NOBODY, can tread it without much guidance and humility. This humility itself will not enter into people's words and actions and repeatedly I find (on many locations) people insisting about their uniqueness and the unique paths they are following and how they will create their. In reality they can NEVER create any path alone, because there is nothing unique in any of this- just a great cycle, which makes them believe they are 'different' from the rest. Let the fools believe it- the wise ones will learn to be humble and with folded hands learn at the feet and classrooms of many a teacher.
So a spiritual emergence will lead to a spiritual emergency- and land bewildered people at the doors of psychiatrists, who are equally baffled by it and they just know how to suppress the experiences- via anti-psychotics of various sorts. Cannot blame them- they are only doing what they can, with whatever tools they can. And they will prevail because it takes much shorter time to get a psychiatrist (professionally) ready than it takes for a spiritual master to come along who knows the inside out of this spiritual emergence. And of course because matters of the spirit are considered of no significance, in our society where the supremacy of science, no matter how ethically deployed or comprehended, is beyond challenge- in a vast majority of people, more people will remain permanent prisoners of this split of the consciousness.
So I had to add this little bit for now- not to beat the hell out of psychiatry but to present the case for why there will be no alternative to it in a short run. (Kindly read the article directly on the blog itself)
Cultures of silence, which teach men to hide their sufferings and despair, becoming ‘real men’ will continue and take many a life and a big toll, unless men and women both realize that a life in which we balance our masculine and feminine energies, polarities and sensibilities is a life which will keep us safe, humane and centered. Isn’t it time to question these cultures of silence that want men to remain emotionally frozen and robotic?
I would propose two foci towards this new method- a shift from the individual centered approach towards a ‘relational’ orientation. This model would look at learning not as syllabus or teacher driven, but as an act of co-creating knowledge.
The second shift I would propose would be towards inclusion of the performing/visual arts as a serious component of education, rather than the current marginalized status they are relegated to. Art in education needs to be examined not only because it brings the process of education out from a passive engagement with the prescribed syllabus to a more active association with the material to be learnt, but it also disciplines and cultivates the mind in ways beyond what traditional syllabus-driven models have accomplished or are capable of achieving.
The aim of this proposed shift is to give enough inputs to students to allow them to develop into all-rounded personalities, by building on the strengths inherent in each individual. This approach will not only produce newer outcomes in learning, but also contribute to general happiness and health of children, thereby contributing to their mental wellness and spiritual growth. As Hansadhwani also works in mental health, we look at this whole picture in an integrated manner.
"
A must read book for anyone dealing with depression and a loss of purpose in their life.
Sound frequency stimulation brings about total body synchronization at the cellular level. Music therapy can offer a supplement or alternative to traditional psychotherapies in India, with its diversity of musical, cultural backgrounds and a history of music which...more