Why Mental Health Must Move from Margins to Mainstage: Neha Kirpal

Mental health has long been pushed to the margins of India’s healthcare and policy agenda, despite its staggering scale—200 million people live with mental health conditions, yet the treatment gap remains 95%. In recent years, however, the conversation has moved from hushed tones to boardrooms, classrooms, and policymaking tables. At the forefront of this shift is Neha Kirpal, co-founder of Amaha and founding cohort member of the India Mental Health Alliance. In this conversation with Financial Express Online, she shares her personal journey, the scale of work ahead, and why mental health must be treated as a national development priority. (Edited Excerpts)

Q. How did your journey in the mental health space begin? What drew you to it?

My journey has been deeply personal—it has shaped my entire life. From a very young age, I was a caregiver to a parent with schizophrenia. With two generations struggling with mental illness in my family – my mother and my brother- much of my childhood was defined by trauma and difficulty. In 2018, I made the decision to sell my art business and work in mental health full-time. I wanted to build care services and create an organisation that could provide quality support, while also using my lived experience to advocate for systemic change and build an alliance for mental health in India.

Q. How has the journey unfolded since then?

The pandemic gave mental health visibility like never before—suddenly, every household was talking about it. Whether it was young people, elder care, marital issues, suicidal thoughts, or addictions, mental health became a mainstream concern. India alone accounts for one-third of the global burden of mental health —with nearly 200 million people diagnosed with mental health conditions and 50 million children affected.

Against this backdrop, my co-founder Dr. Amit Malik and I started Amaha with the vision of making quality mental health care accessible at scale. Today, we reach over 600 cities and towns through our digital platform, which has impacted 4.5 million lives. We have built a strong clinical team of 220 professionals across centres in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, and recently opened our first hospital in Bengaluru for individuals with severe mental illness.

In 2021, we partnered with Children’s First, India’s foremost child and adolescent mental health organisation, to provide care to the whole family i.e. provide care to three generations under the one umbrella entity. More recently, we launched the India Mental Health Alliance (IMHA), which today has 220 members across the country. IMHA is building knowledge, shaping policy conversations, and strengthening the ecosystem for mental health. On 29th September, we are hosting our first-ever national convening, bringing together organisations from across India for day-long discussions and collaboration.

Q. So what’s next?

For me, the work feels like it is only just beginning. Amaha has grown from 20 clinicians to 220 clinicians and is now serving 40,000 clients through therapy and psychiatry services. We now work with over a 100+ corporates, colleges, schools and NGOs across Amaha and Children’s First to create awareness and build support systems for young people.

For IMHA, our focus is on influencing infrastructure, system building and policy, ensuring mental health is prioritised across education, livelihoods, women and child development, and other sectors. Mental health must be treated as a development agenda, much like climate change. With every fourth person experiencing a mental illness during their lifetime, and India facing a 95% treatment gap, the urgency is clear. Prevention, early identification, and community-based support are critical. We must also build the capacity of teachers, parents, healthcare workers, police, and others to identify and respond to mental health challenges.

Q. Why must mental health be seen as a cross-sectoral issue?

Mental health is shaped by bio-psycho-social factors, and it impacts everyone. It cannot be viewed in isolation or treated as a subset of physical health. Education, livelihoods, gender, community, climate change—even air pollution—directly influence our mental health. This is why mental health intersects with 6–7 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through IMHA, we are bringing together organisations from different sectors to collaborate, share knowledge, and build capacity to address mental health collectively rather than in silos.

Q. Why is lived experience expertise critical in practice?

Globally, we have followed a biomedical, largely Western, model of care, which often overlooks cultural context and the lived realities of families. Clinicians bring important knowledge about symptoms, treatment, and rehabilitation. But families and caregivers—who live with these people who struggle with these conditions’ day in and day out—bring irreplaceable expertise.

In my own life, I’ve cared for a parent with schizophrenia and for a brother who experienced psychosis and depression before we tragically lost him to suicide. Families like mine understand what sustained care, daily support, and resilience look like outside a doctor’s clinic. This perspective is vital in shaping collaborative models of care where clinicians, caregivers, and those with mental illness work together.

At Amaha, we pay close attention to the client and family experience at every touchpoint—from booking an appointment to hospital admission—to make care compassionate and accessible. At a policy level, lived experience expertise ensures that systems are designed with responsiveness, continuity of care, and legal safeguards in mind. It’s about creating solutions that truly meet families’ needs and enable lasting recovery.

Q. How do you see policies and laws in India? Are we on the right track?

India has made important strides with the Mental Healthcare Act of 2017, which decriminalised suicide and mandated parity between mental and physical health in insurance coverage. These are progressive provisions.

The challenge lies in implementation. Responsibility has been left to district mental health authorities, and progress is patchy. Many people don’t even know their rights—for instance, that mental health care is fully covered by insurance. Real impact will require coordination between healthcare organisations, insurers, law enforcement, and policymakers to ensure implementation is consistent and effective.

Q. Can you tell us about your upcoming book and what inspired it?

I have co-authored a book with Nandini Murali (founder of SPEAK) titled ‘Homecoming: Mental Health Journeys of Resilience, Healing and Wholeness’, releasing on 29th September. It features the stories of 11 women leaders from different sectors who navigated severe mental health challenges in their families and built support systems to reclaim their lives. These stories are powerful examples of how, with the right support, people can overcome stigma, access care, and live full, successful lives.