About Us

Jwala Narayanan

Ms. Jwala Narayanan, MA Clin Psych, MSc NeuroPsych (UK), is a Consultant Neuropsychologist. She has close to 10 years of experience in the field. Her area of specialty involves cognitive assessments for the purpose of diagnoses in people who have neurological conditions. Much of her work also involves the rehabilitation of people post brain injury (stroke, head injury, brain infection, epilepsy). Her main area of research is Dementia. She has a special interest in bilingualism and memory. She runs special group sessions for memory, anger, depression, and fatigue after brain injury and an enrichment program for people with dementia called Cogworks.

She received the Neuropsychology International Fellowship award from the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the Neuropsychology Division of the BPS that gave her a chance to observe work in different neuropsychology units across the UK. She also received a grant from Burning Man, US, to run a community program to promote healthy aging and managing dementia.

Dr Ashlesha Bagadia

Dr. Ashlesha Bagadia is a Consultant Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist with over 15 years of clinical experience. After completing her medical training through Karnataka University, she went to UK where she completed higher training in Psychiatry at the South West London & St George’s NHS Trust and obtained MRCPsych. She then trained and worked in Adelaide, Australia, and completed FRANZCP along with CCT (Certificate of completion of Specialist Training) in Family Systems Psychotherapy. During this time, she became interested in problems arising due to attachment difficulties and completed training under Prof Anthony Bateman, in Mentalisation Based Treatment, a specific form of therapy targeted to help people with a borderline personality disorder. Her interest in attachment-related issues also led her to Canada where she completed a Fellowship in Perinatal Psychiatry & Women’s Mental Health through the University of Toronto.

Dr. Ashlesha moved to India 4 years ago and is now based in Frazer Town, at The Green Oak Initiative, working with mental health issues arising during pregnancy and postpartum. She does assessments for personality disorders and runs a complex needs clinic offering Family and Couples Therapy. She is an external researcher with the Dept of Perinatal Psychiatry at NIMHANS and is involved with developing screening pathways for perinatal mental health disorders. She runs an MBT-group therapy program for people with Borderline Personality Disorder and collaborates with other clinicians to help manage similar conditions.

She is the director of The Parc, an organisation through which she trains and supervises other clinicians in the management of complex mental health conditions. She runs a certificate course in Foundations of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy in collaboration with Mount Carmel College (Bangalore University) and conducts workshops on various therapeutic skills for counsellors, psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists, and mental health clinicians from any background.

Dr. Sowmya Krishna

Dr. Sowmya Krishna, MBBS, MRCPsych, CCT (UK), is a Consultant Psychiatrist with more than 15 years of experience in managing common and complex mental disorders like anxiety disorders, mood/affective disorders like depression/bipolar disorder, psychosis, medically unexplained disorders (chronic pain and somatization), personality disorders and psychiatric issues associated with cancer. She works with adolescents and working-age adults.

She completed her undergraduate training at Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Bangalore, India in 2002 and then went to the UK to pursue higher training in psychiatry. She completed her MRCPsych and obtained CCT (Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training) in General Adult Psychiatry. She has worked at the Regional Affective Disorder in Manchester with eminent professionals like Prof Ian Anderson and can manage complex and treatment-resistant mood disorders. She is well versed in various modalities of psychological therapies, Cognitive Analytical Therapy in particular. She has obtained a clinical certificate from the prestigious British Association of Psychopharmacology. She has a special interest in personality disorders and drafted the personality disorder guidelines for Mersey Care NHS Trust, Liverpool. She enjoys teaching and training and was Honorary Clinical Lecturer at the University of Liverpool.

She returned to India in 2017 and is currently associated with two organisations that provide community mental health services – The Green Oak Initiative, Fraser Town, and Hank Nunn Institute – both based in Bangalore. She is also a member of the managing committee at the Association for the Mentally Challenged (AMC), which is the oldest NGO in Karnataka. AMC provides education and vocational training for children and adults with intellectual disabilities. Another interest of hers has been improving access to mental health services, especially in lower-income countries. During her years in training, she has been part of the development of a computerized tool called GMHAT (Global Mental Health Assessment Tool). This tool is used by various agencies like the Border Security Force and Rajasthan Police to assess and manage mental health. GMHAT is used by various primary care professionals like ASHA workers and Anganwadi workers.

Dr. Ratnavalli Ellajosyula

Dr. Ratnavalli is a senior consultant neurologist. She did her medical and neurological training in New Delhi. She was a faculty member at the Department of Neurology at the National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore for a decade. She started the behavioral neurology clinic there. She has a fellowship in Cognitive Neurology from the University of Cambridge, UK. She was also a research fellow at the University of North Carolina, Chapel hill. Currently, she heads the Memory Clinic at Manipal hospital. She has more than a decade’s worth of experience in cognitive neurology and neuropsychology. Her clinical interests are stroke, neuro infections, and dementia. Her research interests are multilingualism and dementia, breakdown of memory and mechanisms, and neural substrates of language. She has several research projects and has published in the area of stroke and cognitive neurology.

Apoorva Shetty

Apoorva completed her MPhil in Clinical Psychology at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru. She has been trained in conceptualizing psychological conditions and helping one move beyond inflexible constructs. She is a believer in therapeutic congruence, empathic change, and building meaning in clients and self. She also works with individuals with neuropsychological conditions and aids them to lead a more self-directed life. She is dedicated to enhancing meaning in an individuals’ life in line with alleviating pathology.

Vinitha Surya

Vinitha is a well-qualified, proficient Speech-Language Therapist with over a decade of experience in speech and language pathology and can accurately assess client needs including identifying and initiating appropriate speech and language therapy interventions. She is a certified audiologist with years of practical experience and a specialization in pediatric cases. She is a trustee board member at Coimbatore Spastic Trust (CST), India, and has worked as a Senior Speech-Language Pathologist and Audiologist with Apollo Hospitals, India. She has had years of experience working directly with patients to implement services in speech, language, fluency, voice, and cognitive disorders.