Dr Anuradha Sovani

Psychologist and Psychotherapist. Professor and Head, Department of Psychology, and Associate Dean, Humanities, SNDT Women’s University. Has formerly headed Department of Applied Psychology, University of Mumbai. Trustee and Consultant, Institute for Psychological Health, Thane, Maharashtra.

M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., University of Mumbai. Chancellor’s Gold Medalist at Masters’ level. Recipient of various scholarships and awards, including the UGC Research Fellowship, the National Talent Search Scholarship, the Mankar Prize of the University of Mumbai, and recipient of the best research paper award of the Indian Psychological Association, the award for the best paper published in Disabilities and Impairments and best book award for Children’s literature awarded by Maharashtra State. She has successfully guided fourteen Doctoral students, one UGC Post Doc, and five more students are working towards their Doctoral degree.

Dr. Sovani has authored ten Marathi books, four on Child Mental Health, one on Quality of Life, one on couple relationships and couple counseling, a popular new series called “Maanas-rang” as well as over 65 research papers in national and international journals, and book chapters in National and International publications, and has also run various popular newspaper columns. She had worked on a UGC Major Research project on Treatment Resistant Schizophrenia with co-authors Deshpande and Thatte, which is now published as a book.

Dr. Sovani’s SAGE publication is an Indian adaptation of a text on Abnormal psychology with a Neuroscience Perspective, elucidating the cognitive neuroscience underpinnings of the various psychopathologies, as well as a lot of Indian research reviews. She has completed a Shastri Indo Canadian research grant with University of British Columbia on stigma reduction pertaining to mental illness, and is currently involved in an International Rotary funded project on Addiction prevention, after working on the Indian adaptation of Unplugged. She has also completed collaborative works with University of East Anglia, UK and with Government of Maharashtra Health Services, and has contributed to E PG Paathshaala as well as Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching (PMMMNMTT) online training modules of the UGC.

She was instrumental in developing a collaborative project for PreLitigation Counseling with Mumbai High Court called “Let’s Talk”, which has now branched out to Pune, Aurangabad and Nagpur. Her abiding interest in Campus mental health, primary prevention programs in mental health, and therapeutic interventions like REBT, as well as her interest in psycho-diagnostic assessment reflects in her writing. She has presented her work on International platforms including institutions in Canada, The Netherlands, and Belgium.

Dr. Sovani has helped build one of the first gamified recruitment and talent management tools, Nautics; she has helped create Prakashdoot, an audio visual module with FAQs. This module is currently being used as a tool for Universal prevention in remote Maharashtra to spread awareness about Depression and Substance Use Disorders. She has served as Consultant to National and State level bodies including NIMH and Yashada and serves on several institutional ethics committees including Jaslok Hospital and ADAPT. She consults on a number of committees for Prevention of Sexual Harassment. Interest areas include community awareness about mental illness and health, mental health of children and women, working through the print, newspaper columns and audio-visual media.