From Community to Global Mental Health: Experience of a Visiting Research Associate
June 18, 2025 is a day to remember. I walked through the doors of the Center for Global Mental Health Equity for the first time. This wouldn’t have been possible without the invaluable support and guidance of Dr. Sauharda Rai. As an international medical graduate and an aspiring psychiatrist with a deep interest in community psychiatry and medical anthropology, meeting Dr. Kohrt and the incredible team here finally became a dream come true.
Day 1: Connecting the CCMHP to the Center
On my first day, I shared the community work I did with the Health Foundation Nepal and the Nepal Institute of Mental Health in three different wards (local government) of Chitwan, Nepal. With these two institutions, I lead the Collaborative Community Mental Health Program (CCMHP), a longitudinal implementation study that leveraged ward support. We raised Rs. 9,00,000 and conducted 2,014 home based screenings and counseling over the last two years. Now, neighboring wards are approaching us to integrate CCMHP; this major breakthrough in building community support and partnership came from anthropological insights into the existing local health system, the dynamics of power and politics at the ward level and understanding community representatives and leaders' perspectives in local health care.
Day 30: Personal Reflections on the “P” in Psychiatry
As I sat down to reflect on my first month at the Center, I looked back at my scribbled notes and realized something interesting: this month was about understanding the "p" in psychiatry. And no, it's not just about psyche, patients, or prescriptions—it’s about Power, Policy, Politics, Prevalence, Public-Private Partnerships, Perspectives, Pluralism, People, Practices, and most meaningfully, Praxis. The global mental health landscape is dynamic. Policy changes are reshaping how, where, and whether or not mental health care is delivered globally. From the Center, I have learned that localizing community mental health care, by advancing community engagement through public-private partnerships and culturally tailored and validated evidence-based interventions, can put forward sustainable health care in places of need.
