Do you know that a majority of people given a mental health diagnosis, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, multiple personality disorder, anxiety, depression, OCD and other diagnoses can recover and lead as regular or ‘normal’ lives as anyone else? So why is it that they do not? For decades scores of individuals of all hues and shades, which includes writers, poets, psychiatrists, doctors, psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, linguists, legal scholars and those interested in social justice in general have pondered over this question. So has Prateeksha Sharma, the founder of Bright Side Family Counseling Center. By now ‘recovery’ from serious mental illness is increasingly being documented from all corners of the globe.
Dr. Prateeksha Sharma founded the Bright Side Family Counseling Center in 2017 to consolidate the work she had been doing since 2010, keeping recovery as the goal and focus for counseling services. The culmination of this span occurred between the years 2016-2020 in a doctoral research which examined the barriers to recovery from psychosis. As someone who understands mental health from an experiential perspective it is a decade of experience of recovery research that she brings to this enterprise, which is one of a kind, peer-led counseling center- a first in India. We focus on helping people recover, including leaving behind psychiatric pasts. This website, among several outreach programs, takes these ideas further and brings her research, findings and services to a wider number of people around the globe.
Why talk about ‘Recovery’
Mental health issues do not originate because people have a ‘chemical imbalance’ but often because they face situations in their homes, schools and colleges, communities & peers, among friends and neighbourhoods, work places, public transport and more which disturb them deeply. Millions of people face numerous prejudices and stigmas due to religion, language, skin complexion, nationality, sexual orientation, community, caste etc which can damage their sense of self and identity. It is precisely these issues which may cause mental health afflictions, not the other way round.
