Introduction

In response to the growing recognition that clinical practice must both acknowledge and critically engage with its own history and social location, we present the first unit in the series Toward a Just Clinic: Rethinking Mental Health Practice. This unit seeks to bridge theory and practice, offering a space for participants to reflect on and address the realities of oppression and discrimination as they arise in therapeutic work.

Therapy does not occur in a vacuum; it unfolds within wider social, cultural, and systemic contexts that shape and constrain human experience. These contexts often produce unequal distributions of power, privilege, opportunities, and resources across intersecting identities. Many clients arrive in therapy bearing the effects of discriminatory systems and structures. To meet them with integrity requires more than individualised clinical skill: it calls for a commitment to recognising, naming, and addressing the dynamics of power and privilege, and, where possible, engaging in acts of advocacy.

For practitioners, such a stance begins with sustained critical reflection on one’s own social and personal identities, as well as on the power dynamics embedded both in society and within the therapeutic relationship itself. Equally, cultivating a socially just practice involves developing the capacity to challenge the broader social systems that shape the conditions of clients’ lives.

This unit, structured as a workshop, is designed to support participants in taking initial steps toward these commitments. It offers tools for critical inquiry, encourages reflexive practice, and fosters an orientation toward justice that can be carried into therapeutic work and beyond.

Who can attend?

Psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, counsellors, social workers, nurses working with persons in a range of therapeutic settings and populations.

Details and Schedule

Trainer: Priyanka Mittak, PhD; Duration: 3 Sessions and 1 Reflection circle, total: 7 hours

About The Trainer

Priyanka is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist with over 14 years of experience working with adults and young adults across diverse cultural settings in India. Her practice is rooted in compassion, social justice frameworks, and neuroaffirmative approaches, with a strong commitment to respecting people’s culture, values, and identities. Alongside therapy, she works as a supervisor and trainer, fostering reflective and inclusive therapeutic communities.

Through her training, she hopes to create spaces for practitioners and others interested in mental health to slow down, reflect deeply, and question taken-for-granted norms to shape more just and thoughtful practices. She is also the co-founder of Reflexive Dialogues, a collective that brings together these ideas to nurture nuanced conversations within the field of mental health.

PhD – Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

MPhil – NIMHANS, Bangalore