The current thematic papers looks at a new paradigm shift in thinking – and talking – about mental illness and psychosocial disability, shifting the focus away from the entrenched “bio-medical psychiatry” that puts emphasis on the pathology at the individual level, and instead into a discourse that puts principles of autonomy, dignity and equality into the limelight, in the context of India. With the experience and insight of Anjali, a Kolkata-based mental health rights organisations, the paper presents the differences between the “expert-centric” approach of the current model and the “experience-centric” of the new, especially when it comes to subject matters such as sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and it also explores the challenges in implementing such as a change in a country where structural exclusions and institutional biases are deeply embedded in its laws.
