India Mental Health Alliance Puts Personal Experience at Heart of Healthcare on World Mental Health Day

What Happened

On the occasion of World Mental Health Day on October 10th, the India Mental Health Alliance (IMHA) has reaffirmed its commitment to making personal experience central to mental healthcare design and policy. IMHA is a network of 400 organisations spread across 30 Indian states. To advance this goal, the alliance is building a collaborative Knowledge Hub that brings together clinical expertise, field lessons, and research grounded in local contexts. As part of this effort, IMHA has released India's first anthology of lived-experience narratives written by 11 women leaders from various sectors.

Details of the Anthology

Titled 'Homecoming: Mental Health Journeys of Resilience, Healing & Wholeness', the book features first-person accounts of women in urban India who have navigated severe mental health conditions. These conditions include depression, complex PTSD, suicide loss, intergenerational trauma, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Dr. Kavita Arora, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and founding cohort member of IMHA, stated that personal experiences offer vital knowledge about how people experience services and seek support within their social and cultural contexts.

Context

World Mental Health Day is observed globally every year on October 10th to raise awareness about mental health issues and mobilise support for mental health care. IMHA was launched in late 2023 as a partnership between Vasvi and Ashish Bharat Ram, Amaha Health, and Children First. The alliance brings together diverse sectors such as health, gender, livelihood, climate, and education to improve the quality of care and mainstream mental health as a national development priority in India.