Mental health care in India still has a long way to go in making room for people whose distress is often the result of what the world has put on them, rather than anything inherently wrong with who they are.

Aparupa Dasgupta is a clinical psychologist who works from within that gap. She holds an M.Phil in Clinical Psychology from the Clinical Psychology Centre, University of Calcutta, and an M.Sc in Applied Psychology with a specialisation in Clinical and Forensic Psychology, and is registered with the Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI).

Her clinical training took her across a range of psychiatric, medical, and shelter-home settings, where she conducted both individual and group therapy across very different kinds of need. That experience shaped her understanding of how distal stressors, such as systemic discrimination, exclusion, and a lack of safe spaces, can, over time, become internalised as anxiety, rumination, and difficulty trusting one’s own footing.

Her clinical interest lies in that exact process: not treating a person as the problem, but recognising what they have had to carry and helping loosen its grip. She is queer affirmative in her practice, and draws on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and third-wave approaches to do this work.

At the heart of her practice is the belief that care should not require a person to explain or justify themselves before being taken seriously. Whether you are navigating anxiety, low mood, persistent stress, or the weight of having had to constantly adapt to an unaccommodating world, Aparupa offers a space where that is not asked of you.