About Us

As a cross-cultural psychologist, Radhika has counselled people of all ages livingwith mental health issues, since 2004.

Her short-term and evidence-based interventions draw on rational emotive and cognitive behavioural frameworks. She situates her therapy in a cross-cultural setting that relies heavily on contextual storytelling and indigenous metaphors. Humor plays a central role in her life and therapy. Presently she works with adults living with stress and adjustment issues, and mood or anxiety disorders.

Since the mental health fallout of the Coronavirus pandemic, Radhika has been creating free content to help people outside the space of individual therapy. Her Instagram handle, @psychotherapybar, experienced exponential growth and engagement since its debut in February 2020, leading her to become acknowledged as a mid-level mental health influencer. She was featured in YourStorys 100 Digital Influencers of 2020. Together with her long-time friend and colleague Dr Uma C Millner, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA (USA), Radhika helped bring together a network of 500-plus mental health professionals and social workers to provide free mental health assistance to people fighting on the frontlines of the pandemic. This effort, named as the “Indian Network of the Diaspora for Essential Aid and Relief(INDEAR),” was featured in a Special Report on Covid-19 Frontline Warriors by Forbes, India.

Radhika’s participation in a research seminar held at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore earned her a fully-funded fellowship to pursue her Ph.D. in Social and Behavioral Sciences at the prestigious Leiden University in The Netherlands. Prior to this, Radhika received her M.Phil. in Clinical Psychology from the Kasturba Medical College in Manipal. Earlier she was professionally trained in Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy at the Albert Ellis Institute in New York under the method’s original purveyors, Dr. Albert Ellis, Raymond DiGiuseppe, Kristene A. Doyle, and Janet L. Wolfe. Radhika was also individually mentored in cognitive neuroscience at the University of British Columbia by Dr. Adele Diamond, one of the 15 most influential neuroscientists in the world. Radhika’s blending of western and indigenous theories of psychology with an emphasis on storytelling was strongly influenced by her association with Dr. Malavika Kapur, former Head of the Department of Psychology at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS).

Radhika served as Head of the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Mental Health at Sahyadri Hospitals in Pune from 2009-2018. There she worked alongside an interdisciplinary team of medical experts and focused on teaching, supervisory training, adult neuropsychological rehabilitation, and creating low cost rehabilitation tools. Under the aegis of Sahyadri Hospitals, Radhika also founded a holistically-oriented Child Guidance Center (CGC), which brought together clinical psychologists, neuropsychologists, special educators, speech and language pathologists, occupational and sensory integration therapists, and applied behavioral therapists. Under Radhika’s direction, the CGC became one of the first centers in India to offer early interventions for children aged 0 to 6.

Radhika now works independently to achieve a work-play-travel balance. She is married to Fulbright-Hays fellow and scholar in South Asian studies Dr. Justin Scarimbolo. Together they have a son, Neel, with whom they travel between their two homes in Pune, India and the Catskills Mountains of upstate New York.