At PsychLine, the clinic and the lab talk to each other. We study the real experiences of Indian and South Asian communities — not to confirm what we already believe, but to discover what we don't yet know.
Each project starts from a real gap — something we notice in our clinical work that the existing literature hasn't adequately addressed for Indian and South Asian contexts.
Global health has long operated as a one-way street — resources, knowledge, and expertise flowing from high-income countries (HRS) to lower-resource settings (LRS), with little flowing in return. This paper challenges that assumption head-on.
It examines three things: the structural barriers to true reciprocity (visa restrictions, implicit bias rooted in lingering colonial attitudes, helicopter research, and funding asymmetry); the underappreciated value that LRS settings offer back — from frugal innovations to broader sample diversity and novel public health strategies; and actionable frameworks for genuinely bilateral collaboration in global health research and practice.
The paper argues that reciprocity isn't merely an ethical ideal — it's a practical necessity for better science, more generalisable findings, and sustainable health equity worldwide.
India houses the world's largest adolescent population — yet cyberbullying among Indian youth remains one of the most underexamined public health issues in the country. This systematic review changes that.
Screening 1,332 articles across six electronic databases (PsycINFO, Embase, MEDLINE, ERIC, Web of Science, PubMed), 46 studies met full inclusion criteria. The findings are striking: victimisation rates range from 2.7% to 72% — a gap that reveals not just regional variation, but deep methodological inconsistency in how the phenomenon is defined and measured in India.
The review synthesises prevalence, forms (impersonation, denigration, exclusion, organised digital violence), risk factors (age 14–17, female gender, limited parental monitoring, prolonged social media use), and consequences (depression, suicidal ideation, reduced self-esteem). Only one intervention study exists for India — a finding that speaks for itself. The paper calls for culturally validated instruments, longitudinal designs, and evidence-based interventions rooted in India's sociocultural landscape.
Five years of clinical practice. Thousands of de-identified intake forms, progress notes, and case histories — one of the most detailed datasets on therapy-seeking behaviour in India. We're using it to answer the questions that matter most to any practice trying to serve Indian clients well:
Using a mixed-methods approach — descriptive quantitative analysis paired with NLP analysis of presenting complaints — this study aims to build a richer, more honest picture of the Indian therapy journey than has existed before.
Artificial intelligence is arriving in mental healthcare faster than the evidence can keep up — and this is especially true for South Asian populations, for whom almost no AI mental health research currently exists.
We are building this research stream from the ground up. The questions we're sitting with include:
This is deliberately early-stage and open-ended. We're committed to asking the right questions before proposing any answers.
Dr. Niharika Thakkar's academic work — conducted at Leiden University and in collaboration with international research teams — has built one of the most comprehensive evidence bases on bullying and peer victimisation among adolescents in India, cited over 108 times in the global literature. She has been recognised by USCIS as an Individual of Extraordinary Ability in Implementation and Behavioral Sciences — a designation awarded to fewer than 1% of professionals across any field. She is an Associate Member of the APA, holds Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership with the British Psychological Society (MBPsS), reviews for 10+ journals including BMC Public Health, Psychology of Violence, and Aggressive Behavior, and has presented at 10+ international conferences including the World Congress ESRA.
Beyond our own work, PsychLine offers research support to students, clinicians, and organisations. Whether you're navigating a dissertation, designing a study, analysing data, or writing up findings — our team can step in at any stage.
Enquire about our services →Clinicians, academics, and researchers united by a shared commitment to building an evidence base rooted in Indian realities — and in the daily clinical work of our practice.
We are actively exploring grant opportunities and looking for collaborators who can help us navigate these processes. The most relevant funding bodies for our current stage of work are listed below.
We're always looking for researchers, institutional partners, and academics who want to join us in building the evidence base for mental health in India. If your questions overlap with ours — or you bring expertise in areas we're exploring — we'd love to have you on board.