"I Would Never Take the Meds Myself": Ethnographic Reflections on the Personal Life of Psychiatrists

In a small psychiatric OPD in a public hospital in Delhi, a psychiatrist (Dr. A) prescribes Risperidone to a 7-year-old child with suspected autism and prodromal psychotic symptoms. When asked about the efficacy and side effects of this atypical antipsychotic, Dr. A shares that she personally wouldn’t take any of these medicines due to their severe side effects, describing this as her “personal” choice. She also mentions that she doesn’t trust psychotropic drugs, believing that Yoga and Jyotishi (astrology) are better mechanisms to address psychic distress. According to her, all forms of psychic distress ultimately arise from an ‘imbalance of energies’ that can be corrected through a unison of personal practices with planetary movements. Outside the clinic, in the college canteen, she reveals personal struggles that align with symptoms of ‘depression’ but resists categorising her experiences psychiatrically, despite frequently prescribing SSRIs to patients with similar symptoms.

In what ways does the “personal” (supposedly ‘culture’) affect the “professional” (nature?) practice of psychiatrists? What are the ways in which psychiatrists allow or disallow their personal experiences, personality type, and cultural assumptions to inform their practice and, in turn, their understanding of recovery? This contribution - based on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork in three psychiatric outpatient departments in a public hospital in New Delhi, India - explores how psychiatrists navigate the boundaries between their personal experiences of trauma/mental illness, their beliefs about the efficacy of medication, and the legitimacy of locally attuned healing modalities in their professional practice. By challenging the notion of a monolithic biomedical psychiatry, this contribution highlights the complex social processes that lie at the heart of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment, emphasising how psychiatrists try to integrate or severe the links between the “personal” and the “professional” in their clinical work.