Our Writings
Humraahi Blog
Stories, reflections, and resources on mental health, care, and community.
At Humraahi Psychotherapy, we believe that conversations on mental health do not just happen in the therapy room. Our blog is a space to share reflections from our therapists, amplify voices from the community, and offer thoughtful perspectives on the complexities of being human.
Functioning, But At What Cost?: What the Label of "High-functioning" Leaves Out
What does it really mean to be "high-functioning"? This piece questions the labels we use to describe mental health, exploring how they often reduce complex lived experiences to outward performance. It reflects on the invisible effort behind everyday functioning, the emotional cost of appearing "okay," and why care should not depend on how visibly someone is struggling.
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Community As Care: On Chronic Mental Health Concerns and the Everyday Work of Living
Not all mental health journeys move toward a clear or permanent recovery. This piece explores what it means to live with chronic mental health concerns, where symptoms may fluctuate, return, or become an ongoing part of life. It reflects on the limitations of recovery-focused narratives and the importance of communities and support groups that offer understanding, continuity, and connection—making space for people to navigate uncertainty without the pressure to always be "getting better."
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Why Does Therapy Have To End?
Ending therapy can bring relief, pride, uncertainty, and grief—all at once. This piece explores why therapy is designed to end, what makes termination such an emotionally significant part of the therapeutic process, and how the goal of therapy is not lifelong dependence but growing confidence in your own ability to navigate life. It reflects on the bittersweet nature of saying goodbye, the value of gradual endings, and how therapy becomes something you carry with you rather than a place you remain in.
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Can My Therapist Understand Me If They Haven’t Lived My Experience?
Can a therapist truly understand you without having lived through the same experiences? This piece explores a common fear many people carry into therapy: the longing to feel deeply understood and the belief that only shared lived experience can make that possible. It reflects on what empathy, therapeutic presence, and genuine curiosity offer beyond personal similarity, and how feeling understood is built through the relationship—not simply through shared histories.
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Stuck In Circles: On Struggling in your Relationships
Relationships can get caught in painful patterns that leave both partners feeling unheard, disconnected, and exhausted. This piece explores how recurring cycles of conflict take shape, why they persist, and how couples therapy helps partners step back from blame to understand the relationship dynamics that keep them stuck. By recognising these patterns together, couples can begin to interrupt old cycles and build new ways of relating rooted in understanding, vulnerability, and connection.
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Why Do Couples Come To Therapy?
Couples therapy is about far more than repairing relationships in crisis. This piece explores the many ways relationship therapy can support partners as they navigate conflict, communication, intimacy, cultural and family expectations, life transitions, and the everyday work of building a shared life. Rather than assigning blame, it invites couples into a space of curiosity, understanding, and collaboration, where stronger, more intentional relationships can take shape.
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Who Gets To Shape The Story In Therapy?: Insight, Authority and Power in the Therapy Room
Therapy is not only a space of healing—it is also a relationship shaped by power, language, and the meanings we create together. This piece reflects on the importance of reflexivity in therapeutic work, inviting us to examine how interpretations, authority, and context influence the therapy room. When power is acknowledged rather than denied, therapy becomes a more collaborative space where curiosity, dialogue, and shared meaning can flourish.
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Why Lived Experience Must Be Centred In Disability-Affirming Therapy?
Lived experience is a form of knowledge that no diagnostic framework can fully capture. Drawing from disability justice perspectives, this piece explores why centring the voices of people with lived experience leads to more ethical, responsive, and collaborative care. Rather than positioning professionals as the sole experts, it invites us to recognise that healing begins by meeting the wisdom people already carry about their own lives, bodies, and survival.
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Beyond What Meets The Eye: Recognising the unseen struggles, limits, and daily realities of non-visible disabilities
What happens when our understanding of disability depends only on what we can see? This piece explores the lived realities of non-visible disabilities, reflecting on the quiet labour of navigating pain, fatigue, fluctuating capacity, and the burden of having to continually prove experiences that remain unseen. It invites us to move beyond visibility as the measure of legitimacy and towards a more expansive understanding of disability, one grounded in trust, dignity, and care.
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Can I Just Exist Without Performing?: On Resilience And Chronic Illness
Resilience is often celebrated as something to aspire to, but for many living with chronic illness, it can become a burden rather than a compliment. This piece reflects on the hidden costs of romanticising endurance, inviting us to move beyond admiring people's capacity to survive and instead ask how we can lessen the weight they are carrying. Sometimes, the most compassionate response isn't to praise resilience—it's to make resilience less necessary.
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Why Do Early Relational Patterns Matter?
Our earliest relationships leave lasting impressions on how we experience ourselves, others, and the world around us. This piece explores attachment, early caregiving, and the ways childhood experiences shape our relationships, stress responses, and sense of safety. While we cannot rewrite the past, we can begin to understand the patterns we inherited—and create space for new ways of relating, healing, and connecting.
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Can I Get A Cup of Coffee With My Therapist?
The relationship we build with our therapist can be deeply meaningful, making it natural to wonder about closeness, attachment, and the boundaries that shape the therapeutic space. This piece explores why these feelings arise, how therapists think about professional boundaries, and why bringing these questions into therapy can become an important part of the work itself.
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Why Do Transitions Feel So Difficult?
Change is one of life's few certainties, yet every transition asks something different of us. This piece explores the uncertainty, self-doubt, and vulnerability that often accompany new beginnings, reminding us that feeling awkward or unsteady is not a sign that we're doing it wrong—it's part of becoming. By making room for uncertainty, self-compassion, and community, we allow ourselves to grow into new versions of who we are, one transition at a time.
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Learning to Love & Trust Again
Relational trauma is often invisible, shaped not only by what happened but by the love, safety, and care that were missing when they were needed most. This piece explores how our present-day patterns can be understood as survival responses to earlier relationships, inviting us to replace self-judgment with compassion and to recognise that healing begins by experiencing safety, trust, and connection in new ways.
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Tied by Love, Bound by Norms: Attachment and Indian Marriages
Marriage in India is never just about two individuals—it is shaped by families, culture, gender, and generations of inherited expectations. This piece explores how attachment unfolds within these wider systems, inviting us to understand relationships not only through personal histories but also through the social worlds that shape how we love, belong, and relate to one another.
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Marriage, Gender, and the Self We Carry: Between the Roles We Inherit and the Selves We Carry
Marriage doesn't only bring two people together—it often reshapes identity, expectations, and a woman's relationship with herself. This piece explores how the transition into marriage is influenced by years of gendered socialisation, the pressure to adapt to new roles, and the quiet work of holding onto one's individuality. It is an invitation to reflect on belonging, boundaries, and creating space for both partnership and personhood.
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How We Talk About Suicide Can Make A Real Difference
Talking about suicide can feel frightening, but compassionate conversations have the power to save lives. This piece explores how listening without judgment, validating someone's pain, and simply staying present can reduce shame and isolation. Rather than trying to find the perfect words, we are invited to meet people with empathy, curiosity, and the reminder that no one should have to carry unbearable pain alone.
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The Limits of Helpline-Centric Suicide Prevention in India: Moving Beyond an Immediate Crisis Response to Systemic Change
World Suicide Prevention Month reminds us that preventing suicide requires far more than responding to moments of crisis. While helplines play an important role, lasting prevention depends on accessible mental health care, stronger public health systems, and addressing the social conditions that contribute to despair. This piece reflects on why suicide prevention must move beyond crisis response towards building sustained, community-centred ecosystems of care.
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Understanding Suicide as a Non-Suicidal Person
Suicidal pain is often met with questions like, “But why would someone do that?”—questions that can unintentionally dismiss the depth of what someone is experiencing. This piece explores suicide through the lens of unbearable psychological pain, reminding us that empathy begins not with answers, but with curiosity. By moving beyond judgment and making space for people's stories, we create the conditions where hope, connection, and the possibility of another tomorrow can begin to emerge.
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All That We Carry: Holding Space in a World That Feels Unsteady
Every conversation in the therapy room is shaped by the world outside it. In this piece, we reflect on what it means to practise therapy in the midst of political upheaval, collective grief, and systemic injustice—and why care, witnessing, and connection remain deeply meaningful acts even when they cannot undo the systems that create suffering.
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The Therapy Room Does Not Exist In A Vacuum
Therapy does not exist outside the political and social realities that shape our lives. This reflective piece explores how mental health professionals hold both personal and collective pain, while recognising that even amidst systemic injustice, acts of care, connection, and accountability can become meaningful forms of resistance.
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Therapy as a Site for Ableism & Healing
Therapy isn't automatically free from ableism: it takes intention to create spaces where disabled and chronically ill clients don't have to justify their experiences. This post explores what disability-affirming therapy can look like, inviting mental health professionals to question assumptions about independence, productivity, and healing while centring access, interdependence, and clients' lived realities.
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Words as Gatekeepers: Language, Power, and Disability
Language is never just about words: it shapes who is believed, included, and supported. This post explores how the language we use around disability, particularly non-visible disabilities, can either reinforce ableism or create space for dignity, agency, and belonging.
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On Medical Paternalism: How “Doctor Knows Best” Silences Patients
Medical paternalism occurs when healthcare providers override patients’ voices in the name of “doctor knows best.” This post explores its impact on trust, care, and autonomy — especially for disabled individuals — and how we can shift towards collaborative, patient-centred practice.
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The Missing Gendered Lens in Disability Rights
Disability and gender are deeply interconnected, yet their overlap is often overlooked in policy, healthcare, and mental health practice. This post examines the gaps between legal protections and lived realities, highlighting why justice for disabled people must centre consent, autonomy, accessibility, and dignity, both within and beyond the therapy room.
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Grief at the Margins
Grief within disability is often invisible, ongoing, and shaped as much by inaccessible systems as by personal loss. This post explores the many forms of disability-related grief: from changes in identity and possibility to the exhaustion of navigating ableism—and why making space to witness this grief is an essential act of care.
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Disability Pride and Radical Belonging
Disability Pride is more than celebration: it is a history of resistance, collective care, and the ongoing fight for access and justice. This post traces the legacies of disability activists while reflecting on what pride means today: claiming space, building community, and affirming that disabled people have always belonged.
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Belonging in a World That Wasn’t Built With Us in Mind
Living with a disability often means navigating not only your own body or mind, but a world that questions, excludes, and demands constant adaptation. This post reflects on identity, belonging, and the cost of masking, while exploring how community, care, and disability pride can help create spaces where people are valued without having to earn their place.
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On Internalised Ableism
Ableism doesn't only shape the world around us—it can shape how disabled people come to see themselves. This post explores internalised ableism, how it develops through societal messages and exclusion, and why unlearning these beliefs is an important step toward self-compassion, disability pride, and community.
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Understanding Non-Visible Disabilities: Disability Pride Month!
Disability Pride Month is an invitation to challenge narrow ideas of what disability looks like and who is believed. This post explores the realities of living with non-visible disabilities, the impact of invisibility and disbelief, and why creating more affirming, accessible spaces begins with listening and believing people's lived experiences.
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Stories of Becoming
Every therapist has a story that shapes the way they listen, hold space, and make sense of the world. In this reflective piece, our founder shares the personal journey that led to becoming a therapist and building Humraahi: a space grounded in curiosity, compassion, and the belief that healing begins when our stories are truly witnessed.
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Helping Profession in a Helpless World
In a world marked by violence, loss, and systemic failure, it's easy for helping professionals to question whether their work is enough. This reflective piece explores the quiet power of therapy: not as a solution to every crisis, but as an act of resistance that nurtures safety, accountability, and hope, one relationship at a time.
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Why Is Vulnerability So Hard?
Vulnerability can feel frightening, especially when past experiences have taught us that openness isn't always met with care. This post explores why vulnerability is the foundation of trust and intimacy, and how taking small, intentional risks can help create relationships where we feel truly seen, accepted, and connected.
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Why Does Your Partner Want You To Be Vulnerable with Them?
Vulnerability isn't about revealing everything at once: it's about allowing yourself to be truly seen by someone you trust. Drawing on Irvin Yalom's reflections on intimacy, this post explores how reciprocal vulnerability strengthens relationships and creates the emotional safety needed for genuine connection.
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Why Do We Need To Connect?
Loneliness often convinces us that our struggles are ours alone, making it even harder to reach for support. Inspired by Irvin Yalom's words, this post reflects on the healing power of being witnessed, and how sharing our experiences can transform isolation into connection.
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Love In All Its Forms
Love is often found in the quiet moments we overlook—in friendship, family, community, acts of care, and the compassion we extend to ourselves. This post is a gentle reminder that love isn't limited to romance; it exists in the everyday ways we hold, support, and choose one another.
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Process-Oriented Therapy
Moving towards healing isn't only about finding solutions or quick fixes, it's also about making space to understand yourself with curiosity and compassion. This post introduces process-oriented therapy and explores how slowing down to notice emotions, patterns, and lived experiences can support meaningful, lasting growth.
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Why Does Therapy Take Time?
Healing rarely happens overnight, especially when therapy is helping untangle patterns that have developed over years. This post explores why meaningful change takes time, what the therapeutic process really involves, and how patience, trust, and consistency create the foundation for lasting growth.
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Things NOT to Say to Someone in Therapy
Choosing to begin therapy is often an act of courage, yet it's frequently met with intrusive questions, assumptions, or judgment. This post explores how to speak about therapy with greater empathy and respect, offering thoughtful alternatives that support rather than invalidate someone's mental health journey.
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What You Need NOT Worry About in Therapy
Many people worry they're "doing therapy wrong"—that they're talking too much, sharing too much, or taking up too much space. This post offers reassurance that there is no perfect way to show up in therapy, and that honesty, openness, and bringing your full self into the room are what make the process meaningful.
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I Feel Like I’m Back to Step One
Progress in therapy is rarely linear, and revisiting old patterns doesn't mean you've lost the growth you've worked so hard to build. This post explores why setbacks, triggers, and moments of feeling "back at square one" are a natural part of healing, and how meeting them with compassion, rather than self-criticism, can deepen the therapeutic process.
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Is it Okay to Shift Therapists?
Changing therapists can feel daunting, especially after building trust in such a deeply personal relationship. This post explores the many valid reasons people choose to make this transition, offering reassurance that finding a therapeutic approach and relationship that truly fits your needs is an important part of the healing process.
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Life After Therapy
Therapy doesn't transform you into someone new—it helps you understand, accept, and reconnect with who you already are. This post explores what lasting change in therapy really looks like, challenging common misconceptions and highlighting how healing is less about eliminating pain and more about relating to it with greater awareness and self-compassion.
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Imposter Syndrome as a Therapist
Imposter syndrome is a familiar companion for many therapists, especially in the early stages of practice. This post explores where these fears come from, how they can shape therapeutic work, and why embracing uncertainty, seeking support, and returning to your values can be just as important as building clinical expertise.
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Healing in Community
Support groups are more than spaces to share stories—they are spaces to witness, be witnessed, and discover that you don't have to navigate life's challenges alone. This post explores how support groups foster safety, connection, and collective healing, reminding us that some of our deepest struggles become lighter when held in community.
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Losing a Pet is like Losing a Part of Yourself
The loss of a pet is the loss of a relationship, a routine, and a part of ourselves that came alive through their companionship. This post reflects on the depth of pet grief, acknowledging the often-overlooked pain of losing a source of unconditional love and the importance of honouring both the bond we shared and the person we were with them.
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The Silent Grief of Losing a Pet
Pet loss is a profound form of grief that is often misunderstood or overlooked, leaving many people to mourn in silence. This post explores why grieving a pet deserves recognition, and how validation, community, and compassionate spaces can help us honour the enduring bond we shared with them.
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Unseen Grief
Not all grief is recognised or given the space it deserves. This post explores disenfranchised grief: the losses that are often dismissed, stigmatised, or left unnamed; and why validation, compassion, and community are essential for healing when the world struggles to acknowledge our pain.
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The Paradox of Joy
Joy can feel surprisingly vulnerable, especially when moments of happiness are accompanied by the fear that something will soon go wrong. Drawing on Brené Brown's concept of foreboding joy, this post explores why we struggle to fully embrace joy; and how allowing ourselves to experience it is an act of courage, vulnerability, and trust.
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Systems Beyond our Control
Therapy can support healing, but it cannot undo the harm created by unjust systems. This reflective piece explores the tension mental health professionals navigate between caring for individuals and confronting the structural barriers that shape their lives, reminding us that meaningful mental health care must also reckon with social and political realities.
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Do Therapists Gain Immunity to the Struggles They Treat?
Therapists are not immune to pain, loss, or life's uncertainties—they are human first, and professionals second. This post challenges the myth that therapists have all the answers, exploring why seeking support, embracing vulnerability, and doing their own inner work are essential to ethical and compassionate practice.
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Stuckness in Therapy
Feeling stuck in therapy can be unsettling for both the client and the therapist, but it doesn't necessarily mean the process has stopped working. This post explores therapeutic stuckness with curiosity rather than blame, reflecting on how moments of impasse can become opportunities for deeper understanding, collaboration, and growth.
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Helplessness As Early-Career Therapists: A Silent Struggle
For many early-career therapists, one of the hardest lessons is learning that helping doesn't always mean having the answers. This reflective piece explores the helplessness that often accompanies therapeutic work, and how simply bearing witness to another person's pain can be one of the most meaningful and healing acts a therapist can offer.
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What Supervision at Humraahi is Like
Beginning a career as a therapist can feel both exciting and isolating, especially in private practice. This post introduces Humraahi's Peer Supervision Groups: collaborative, process-oriented spaces where early-career therapists can reflect on their work, explore clinical processes, and grow alongside a supportive community of peers.
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Peer Supervision and the Power of Community
The early years of practicing psychotherapy can feel both rewarding and deeply isolating. This post explores how peer supervision offers early-career therapists a space for reflection, shared learning, and community, highlighting the role of collaborative support in building confidence, clinical insight, and a sustainable professional identity.
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What Is It Like Being A Therapist
What is it really like to be a therapist? This personal reflection moves beyond common misconceptions to explore the privilege of witnessing people's vulnerability, resilience, and courage, reminding us that while every story is unique, our shared emotional experiences are what connect us most deeply.
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How to Look for a Therapist?
Finding the right therapist is about more than credentials—it's about choosing someone who feels like the right fit for your needs, values, and circumstances. This post walks you through the key factors to consider, from qualifications and therapeutic approach to practical concerns like budget, availability, and accessibility, helping you make a more informed decision.
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Therapeutic Vs Therapy
Not everything that feels therapeutic is therapy; and both have an important place in supporting our well-being. This post unpacks the difference between therapeutic activities and psychotherapy, exploring how everyday practices can complement, but not replace, the deeper, intentional work of therapy.
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Empowerment Through Understanding: Essential Therapy Terms for Clients
Starting therapy often comes with unfamiliar words that can make the process feel overwhelming. This guide breaks down some of the most common therapy terms, from confidentiality and informed consent to the therapeutic alliance; so you can feel more informed, confident, and comfortable as you begin your journey.
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Navigating Your First Therapy Session
Starting therapy can feel unfamiliar, but knowing what to expect can make the first session a little less daunting. This post walks you through the early stages of therapy, highlighting the role of safety, collaboration, curiosity, and patience as you begin your journey toward greater self-understanding.
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Navigating FFTs - The First F*cking Time: Embracing Life Transitions
Life transitions often bring uncertainty, vulnerability, and the discomfort of stepping into the unknown for the first time. Inspired by Brené Brown's concept of the "FFT", this post explores how courage, self-compassion, and embracing discomfort can help us navigate change with greater resilience.
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Adulting is Lonely
Adulthood can feel unexpectedly lonely as friendships change, responsibilities grow, and finding connection becomes more difficult. This post reflects on the shared experience of loneliness in adulthood, reminding us that while isolation is common, meaningful connection and support are still possible.
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The Authenticity of Tears: Mirroring Emotions in Therapy
Can therapists cry in session? This reflective piece explores the role of emotion, authenticity, and professional boundaries in the therapeutic relationship, considering how moments of shared humanity can deepen connection while remaining grounded in ethical and thoughtful practice.
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Balancing Boundaries: Navigating Cancellation Policies in Therapy
Behind every therapy session is the often-unseen work of sustaining a private practice with care and integrity. This personal reflection explores why cancellation and rescheduling policies matter, highlighting how clear boundaries support not only therapists' well-being but also a more respectful and consistent therapeutic relationship.
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When to Consult a Psychologist?
Wondering whether therapy is right for you can feel confusing, especially when there isn't a single moment that makes the answer obvious. This post offers a few reflective questions to help you consider whether speaking with a psychologist might support you—whether you're navigating distress, a life transition, or simply seeking greater self-understanding.
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