Mridula Sridhar

Thesis title: Healing beyond colonial fragmentation: Towards psychotherapeutic alterity

Research summary

Our experience of the self is often in opposition to the 'other.' This split between the self and the other has been studied in decolonial and anti-racist work from a psychoanalytic lens, examining the psychic processes that underlie such relational and social/cultural fragmentation. But an experience of the self as split off and independent from the other creates the conditions for us to not only justify our dominance and violence over the other but also in that process, lose out on an integrated experience of the self. Thus, colonial fragmentation is not merely the condition of minorities or the marginalised, a splitness that they need to contend with at a cultural level or even an ontological level. It is a condition of the modern self (that we are all increasingly internalising) that necessarily must ontologically fracture itself to deny the other its existence. 

Does psychotherapy address this alarming sociogenic condition? What could ‘healing’ from such split colonial subjectivities mean? There have been growing relational, mystical, and counter movements that stress our interconnectedness and responsibility towards one another. As a psychotherapist, what happens when our healing efforts are inspired by such cosmologies and are focused on responding to the fragmentation caused by modern cosmology? What could a non-modern approach to counselling and psychotherapy look like? 

Research blog: https://iyakkam.substack.com/about

 

Publications:

"Modern Psychology and its Colonial Legacy" published on Mad in America (2024): https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/12/modern-psychology-and-its-colonial-legacy/

Past project grants

Principal's Teaching Award Scheme with Dr. Karen Serra Undurraga and Dr. Candela Sanchez
Fostering Dialogue Across Racial Differences: A Pilot Study: The project explores dialogical interracial culture circles as an innovative pedagogical approach to fostering racial equity in higher education. By engaging undergraduate students in participatory, student-led discussions, the study examines how dialogue, experiential activities, and collective reflection can enhance critical awareness of racial dynamics in learning environments and inform more sensitive teaching practices.
Project webpage: https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/fostering-dialogue-across-racial-differences/

Student Experience Grant with Dr Fiona Murray, Dr Edgar Rodriguez-Dorans, and Augustus Reid
Hosted Professor Eve Tuck from NYU for a lecture and workshop series.

Papers delivered

European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, January 2025

  • "Being Brown and Not-Brown: Reclaiming Subjectivity in Resistance"
  • "Meeting and Holding a Gaze as Collaborative Writing's Precondition" with co-presenters Dr Fiona Murray and Dr Edgar Rodríguez-Dorans 

Association for Psychosocial Studies, June 2025

  • "Healing Beyond Colonial Fragmentation"

International Conference of Autoethnography, July 2025 (awarded CCRI funding)

  • "Healing Beyond Colonial Fragmentation"

Academic Year 2025-2026

Semester 1: Between Counselling and Research 1

Semester 2: Decolonising Self, Therapy, and Society: Psychosocial Reflections

Guest Lecture: 'Self-care as a therapist' for MCouns students in May 2026.

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