Book

• Mental health and critical community care: Perspectives from India (to be published by Routledge in 2025)

Journal Publications

• Ebrahim, N & Kottai, S.R. Psychiatry, care and consent: Critical investigation (Book review). Indian Journal of Medical Ethics (Accepted)

• Dhatchanamoorthy, S. & Kottai, S. R. (2025). Archives, mental health systems and the history of mental health in colonial south India: Critical questions. Indian Journal of Medical Ethics (Accepted).

• Kottai, S. R. (2024). World Mental Health Day, Medicalised Mental Health Awareness and Psychiatric Subjectivation: Stories and Anxieties of ‘Unlivability’. ReFrame VI: Global Mental Health from the Margins. Mariwala Health Initiative Journal, (6). 

• Kottai, S. R. (2024). "Mirroring” the world v/s “world-making”: The crisis of ethics in Indian mental health systems. Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry. DOI:10.1891/EHPP-2023-0022.

• Kottai, S. R. (2024). "Doctors advised to take medicines to remove these thoughts”: The violence and violations in sexual mental health care in community mental health programmes in Kerala. Community Development Journal, Oxford University Press.

• Kottai, S.R. (2023). Death by suicides in India. Rethinking mainstream mental health narratives. Economic and Political Weekly, 58 (51), 36-40.

• Kottai, S.R & Ranganathan, S. (2023). "Initially, medicines will be given, and then we need to study the case": Medicalised perspectives about chronicity and mental health care in Kerala. Anthropology and Medicine, 30 (2),153-170. DOI: 10.1080/13648470.2023.2212206

• Kottai, S. R. & Rajalakshmi, R. (2023). Evolving jurisprudence on conversion therapy:Reconsidering ethics in mental health systems. Indian Journal of Medical Ethics. DOI:10.20529/IJME.2023.024

• Kottai, S. R. (2022).  Social sensitivity of mental health systems. Economic and Political Weekly, 57 (37). https://www.epw.in/journal/2022/37/comment/social-sensitivity-mental-health-systems.html 

• Kottai, S. R. (2022).  Book review of Hayfield, Nikki, Bisexual and pansexual identities: Exploring and challenging invisibility and invalidation. Routledge, 2020.131 pp. ISBN978-1-138-61377-5, Feminism and Psychology. doi:10.1177/09593535221121416 

• Kottai, S. R. & Ranganathan, S (2022). A mental health epidemic? Critical questions on the National Mental Health Survey. Economic and Political Weekly, 57 (3), 19-24. 

• Kottai. S. R.(2021). Farmers’ protests, death by suicides and mental health systems in  India: Critical questions. Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, 23 (2), 70-88. DOI: 10.1891/EHPP-2021-0004 

• Kottai, S. R. (2021). Review of Environmental Politics by Elizabeth DeSombre, Environment and Society, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.3167/ares.2021.120114 

• Kottai, S. R.(2021). LGBTQIA+ rights, mental health systems and curative violence in India. 7 (2), Indian Journal of Medical Ethics.  DOI:10.20529/IJME.2021.090 

• Kottai, S. R. (2021). Book review of Unruly Figures: Queerness, Sex Work, and the Politics of Sexuality in Kerala. Contemporary South Asia, 29 (1), 117-118.  https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2021.1884370

• Kottai, S.R.(2020). On the cusp of ‘modernity’: Ayurveda’s tryst with ‘development’ in Nepal. Book review of Mary Cameron, 2019, Three Fruits: Nepali Ayurvedic Doctors on Health, Nature, and Social Change. Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 264 ISBN 978-1-4985-9423-3 . Anthropology News.

• Kottai, S. R.(2020). Migrant workers and the politics of mental health. Economic and Political Weekly, 55 (31).

• Kottai, S. R. & Ranganathan, S. (2020). Task-shifting in community mental health in Kerala: Tensions and ruptures. Medical Anthropology: Cross-cultural studies in health and illness. 39 (6), 538-552.  DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2020.1722122

• Kottai, S. R.& Ranganathan, S. (2019). Fractured narratives of psy disciplines and the LGBTQIA+ rights movement in India: A critical examination. Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, 4 (2), 100-110. DOI: 10.20529/IJME.2019.009

• Kottai, S. R. (2018). How Kerala’s poor tribals are being branded as mentally ill. Economic and Political Weekly Engage, 53 (24).

• Kottai, S. R. & Ranganathan, S. (2018). Reimagining Schizophrenia: New Voices from the Margins [Book review]. Economic & Political Weekly, LIII (4), 31-34.

• Kottai, S.R.& Ranganathan, S. (2017). Book review of Eating Drugs: Psychopharmaceutical Pluralism in India. Psychology and Developing Societies, 29(2), 301–305.

• Das, B., S, Ghosh, S., & Kottai, S. R.(2016). Practice of Family therapy in a heteronormative society of India from a Queer theory perspective, Open Journal of Psychiatry and Allied Sciences. 8 (1), 15-17.

• Kottai, S. R. & Sia, S., K (2013). Inculcating democratic policing in India: A psychological perspective. Indian Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(4), 580-583.

• Kottai, S. R.(2012). Effectiveness of multiple psychotherapeutic interventions in the treatment of adjustment disorder with prolonged depressive reaction in a teenage girl. Indian Journal of Community Psychology, 1(8), 100-112.

Book chapters

• Kottai, S. R. "Forensic Psychology in India: Examining the crisis of values in the profession" In Needs, Chirape & Boonzaier (Eds.). Decolonising Forensic Psychology: Fundamental Questions and Reimagined Futures. Routledge. (Under review). 

• Kottai, S. R. “ Marginality, alterity and mental health in India: A critical analysis”. In Sheshadri, S (Ed.) Reaching Out: Towards a relevant response to Mental Health. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan. (forthcoming) 

• Kottai, S.R. (2024). Can mental health professionals have alternative stories? In Sharma, P (Ed.) Many ways to heal. Therapeutic choices in mental health. Routledge.

• Kottai, S. R. & Ranganathan, S (2021). "When ‘care’ leads to ‘chronicity’: Exploring the changing contours of care of homeless people living on the streets in India". In  Laura &  Calestani (Eds.). Managing chronicity in unequal States: ethnographic perspectives on caring. London: UCL Press.     

 View the video abstract HERE and a short description of the book HERE

Announcements

• Doctoral thesis announcement, "Interrogating care, chronicity and expansion of patienthood: An ethnography of community mental health programmes in contemporary India", Disability and Society, 35 (8). https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2020.1787745

International Magazines/ Blogs

• Kottai. S. R. (2020). Legal capacity for persons with psychosocial disabilities: Reclaiming personhood through UNCRPD. #WHATWENEED CAMPAIGN, TCI Asia Pacific.

• Kottai. S. R. (2020). From amelioration to transformation: Hopes for mental health in human rights based systems. #WHATWENEED CAMPAIGN, TCI Asia Pacific.

• Kottai. S. R. (2019). Sitting on the fence, playing to the gallery of psychiatry: Clinical psychology disrupted. Mad In Asia Pacific.

• Kottai, S. R. & Ranganathan, S. (September 2017). Interrupting caregiving, inviting distress-sharing: Narratives of care from people living on the streets. Café Dissensus. ISSN 2373-177X

National newsletter/ magazines

• Kottai, S. R.(2015). Mental health policy in India: Unpacking the ‘Right to mental health care’, Medico friend circle bulletin, No. 365-366, 22-24.

• Kottai, S. R.(2014). New Mental Health Policy: Is it critical? The Indian Economist.

• Kottai, S.R. (2014). Homesickness and tuberculosis: crossing lines and inventing the psychiatric connection, The Indian Economist.

• "Life is hard": Re-imagining queer-trans mental health and human rights in India at the two-day basic Human Rights training programme organized by the  National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the Department of Social Work, Rajagiri College of Social Sciences, Kochi, 24 February 2025.

• Re-visioning clinical psychology: Critical reflections. Talk at the national seminar on Psychology of Everyday Life at School of Sciences, Rathinam College of Arts and Sciences, Coimbatore, 7 March 2024. 
• Sex, sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) in community mental health programmes in Kerala: The violence in care and cure at MFC Annual Meet, Sewagram, Wardha, February 23-25, 2024. 
•  “Writing/Righting Mental Health/theory and praxis:  Literature, Madness and challenging psychiatric normalisation". Plenary Speaker at the National Seminar on New theories and literatures:  Contemporary turns and specialisations, PG Department of English, Government Arts and  Science College, Kozhikode, 8 December 2023. 

• Against mental Health Day. Inaugural talk on the occasion of EUNOIA ’23-psychology festival, Department of Psychology, MES College, Valancherry, Malappuram, 27 October 2023.
• Ethics and Politics in Mental Health: A critical examination. Talk on the occasion of World Mental Health Day 2023, Department of Psychology, University of Calicut, 10 October 2023.
• Cultivating mental health in the classroom. Talk at the Science Quest Residential Science Camp held at IIT Palakkad, 22 May,  2023. 

• Invitee  at the Policy Dialogue on Promising Practices in Integrating Gender into Government Health Programs at the Ramalingaswamy Centre, Public Health Foundation of India, Bengaluru,  April 10-11, 2023

• LGBTQIA+ rights movement in India: Examining the crisis of care, values and ethics in psy disciplines and state mental health systems, Global Mental Health Series, Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University, February 7 2023

• Panellist at the webinar on Methods of Understanding Mental Health in India, Economic and Political Weekly,  January 10, 2023

• Interrogating ‘Care’, ‘Chronicity’ and Expansion of Patienthood: Ethnographic encounters from community mental health programs in India, Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University, 27 January 2022

• Excellence in Psychology delivered at the Department of Psychology, Sahrudaya College of Arts and Sciences, Kodakara, Thrissur, Kerala, 18 May 2021

• Task-shifting in community mental health in India: Some questions and challenges in the course titled Community-based mental health interventions: Critical perspectives and innovative approaches organised by the Division of Social and Cultural Psychiatry, McGill University,06-09 April 2021

• Mental health and migrant workers, organized by Rural Development and Governance Programme, School of Livelihoods and Development, Tata Institute of Social Sciences Hyderabad as part of Grameen Lecture Series 2020-21, 11 September 2020

• Panelist at the webinar on Managing Mental Health Care During and Post COVID-19 in India, Ramaiah Public Policy Centre, Bangaluru, 4 September, 2020

• When ‘care’ leads to ‘chronicity’: Exploring the changing contours of mental health ‘care’ of homeless people living on the streets in India presented at Alternative Law Forum, Bangaluru, 22 November, 2019

• Community mental health in contemporary India: Interrogating ‘care’, ‘chronicity’ and expansion of patienthood presented at Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Patna, 20 December, 2019

• When community care becomes community mental health: The disappearance of local voices in community mental health programmes in Kerala presented at Institute of Public Health, Bangaluru, 31 January, 2020

• State run mental health institutions in India post-IPC 377 verdict: Examining queer-phobic space-attitude-administrative complex, 6th International Sexuality & Social Work Conference University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, July 1-4, 2025. 

• Diagnosing disorder, Sugarcoating Suffering: Exploring the space-attitude-administrative complex of community mental health programmes in Kerala, held at the Schloss, University of Munster, 12 June 2025

• Chaired the panel on Research Developments in Queer-Trans Mental Health in the symposium titled Care in Practice and Policy: Dialogues in Queer-Trans Mental Health in India held at Board Room, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, 28 February 2025.

• Campus counselling centres as cisgendered and heteronormative organisations: Examining invalidation and its implications for mental health in India in the panel on counternarratives of mainstream mental health discourses at the two day Counter-Narratives: The MHI Conference on Mental Health of Marginalized Communities: Perspectives from India organized by Mariwala Health Initiative (MHI) in collaboration with School of Performing Arts and Liberal Studies, HSNC University (State Public University) & Departments of Sociology and Psychology, Kishinchand Chellaram College (Constituent college of HSNC University) Mumbai, 7-8 February 2025. 

• Counselling centres as cisgendered and heteronormative  organisations: Examining invisibilization and disenfranchisement at the ICSSR sponsored two-day National Seminar Discussing Issues and Prospects Around the Spectrum of Gender in India: In the Context of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, Dikhowmukh College, Moglow, Sivasagar, Assam, October 2024. 

• Estrangements ‘at home’ and familiarities in ‘the foreign’: Reflections from multi-sited fieldwork in India at the workshop  (Un-)Familiar Grounds: Reflections on Anthropology, Fieldwork and Home at Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology,  Halle/Saale 2023, 30 November, 2023.

• “Maathaa bethakoriche…, shorir bethakoriche…” (“Head aches…, body aches…”): Psychiatry, state and the case of psychopolitics of emotion in Assam, India, in the panel Anthropology of Emotions in South Asia at the  19th IUAES-WAU World Anthropology Congress 2023 Marginalities, Uncertainties, and World Anthropologies: Enlivening Past and Envisioning Future, New Delhi, 14th – 20 October 2023

• Indentured labour, intergenerational trauma and mental health of Indian descendants in Malaysia in the  Global Conference on Slavery, Indentured Labour, Migration, and their impact on present societies, Organised by the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities in collaboration with the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research (FGSR), the Faculty of Social Sciences, the Social Sciences Research Institute (IMWO) of  Anton de Kom University of Suriname, and the Directorate of Culture, Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Government of Suriname at  Anton de Kom University of Suriname, Paramaribo, June 6-9 2023 

• Queer rights, mental health praxis and knowledge production in postcolonial India: Critical examination  at the Institute for Critical Social Inquiry (ICSI) Summer Seminar on Transsexual Exceptions: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality, New York, June 10-17 2023

• Mirroring” the world v/s “world-making”: Crisis in clinical psychology in India, Afro-Asian Psychology Conference, 5-7 May 2022

• Sex and sexuality in community mental India: The violence in 'care' and 'cure in the international workshop organized by the Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad & Centre for Writing and Pedagogy, Krea University, 27-28 April 2022.

• When there are only 'psychopharmaceuticals' and 'counselling': COVID-19, migrant workers and the politics of mental health in the Biennial Conference, American Anthropological Association, 6-10 April 2021.

• Migrant workers’ crisis and the programmatic response of mental health systems during the COVID-19 pandemic: A critical appraisalin the National Academy of Psychology Annual Conference organised by the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Kanpur, 19-21 March 2021.

• "Mentally ill are like rusted knives, they will never be the same again": Changing perspectives about care and chronicity in community mental health services in Kerala in the National Academy of Psychology Annual Conference organised by the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Kanpur, 19-21 March 2021.

• When ‘care’ leads to ‘chronicity: Exploring the changing contours of care of homeless people living on the streets in Kolkata and Assam as a poster presentation in the seminar on The Performing Body: Conversations on Healing with Medical Humanities, organized by the Department of Liberal Arts, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad. (01-02, 2019).

• The ‘global’ engulfs the ‘local’: Voices from community mental health organisations in Kerala, India as a poster presentation in the 39th Annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Society and Culture (SSPC), at the Joan B Croc Institute for Peace and Justice, University of San Diego, California, USA. (19-21 April 2018)

• Sugarcoating suffering: Excluded voices from community mental health clinics in Kerala as an oral presentation at the 42nd National Annual Conference of the Indian Association of Clinical Psychologists organized by the Department of Clinical Psychology, Regional Institute of Medical Sciences, Imphal, Manipur. (24-27 February 2016)

• Inculcating democratic policing in India: A need-based approach as an oral presentation at International Youth Conference 2012 on Youth for Integral Humanism hosted by G B Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand. (12-13 January 2012)

• India-Pakistan-Bangladesh relations in a psychological perspective as a poster presentation at the Indian Science Congress hosted by KIIT University, Bhubaneswar (3- 7 January 2012)

• Cultural parenting and ego-strength-A theoretical framework on Homosexuality as a poster presentation at the Indian Science Congress hosted by SRM University, Chennai (3- 7 January 2011)

• Psychological roots of criminal behaviour: A need-based interventional approach as an oral presentation at the 37th National Annual Conference of the Indian Association of Clinical Psychologists organized by Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Gujarat Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar (21-23 January 2011)

• Effectiveness of multiple psychotherapeutic interventions in the treatment of adjustment disorder with prolonged depressive reaction in a teenage girl- A case study as an oral presentation at the National Seminar on Current trends and challenges in Applied Psychology organized by the Department of Psychology, University of Calicut (14- 15 October 2010)

• DAAD Bilateral Exchange of Academics Grant 2025 (April 2025)

• Selected as Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Equity Studies, New Delhi (June 2023 onwards)

• Travel grant to attend Social Studies of Medicine Writing and Publishing Workshop in Asia, University of Chicago Francis and Rose Yuen Campus, Hong Kong  (January 18-20 2024)

• Research grant Fall 2023 Global South Grants  Program by SPSI

• IIT Palakkad research seed grant on Coloniality and other frameworks of power: How mental health systems in India think about suffering (2024-2026)

• Forum for Medical Ethics Society (FMES) -Indian Journal of Medical Ethics (IJME) Award of Appreciation in the FMES-IJME Ethics Awards 2022-23 in Category 1- Advocates/Champions foregrounding lived experiences and contributing to ethical practices for rights-based mental health care

• Travel grant and another grant to attend the workshop  (Un-)Familiar Grounds: Reflections on Anthropology, Fieldwork and Home at Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Halle/Saale 2023

• Travel grant to attend Global Conference on Slavery, Indentured Labour, Migration, and their impact on present societies Organised by the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities in collaboration with the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research (FGSR), the Faculty of Social Sciences, the Social Sciences Research Institute (IMWO) of  Anton de Kom University of Suriname, and the Directorate of Culture, Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Government of Suriname at  Anton de Kom University of Suriname, Paramaribo, June 6-9, 2023

• Selected Fellow in the 2023 Institute for Critical Social Inquiry (ICSI) Summer Seminar, Transsexual Exceptions: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality, New York (2023)

• Public Health Ethics  Writeshop Fellowship awarded by Rural Women’s Social Education Centre, SCARF Chennai (2022)

• Selected for the Dissertation to Book Workshop as part of the Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin, Madison (2021)

• Research Appreciation Award, Indian Institute of Technology  Hyderabad (2018)

• Cleared National Eligibility Test for Lectureship (Psychology) conducted by the University Grants Commission (2011)

• Second Prize in the Essay competition on the topic, "If I become a police officer"  organised by Kerala Police (2005)

• First Prize in National level essay writing competition on "Relevance of Gandhian thoughts in contemporary India" organised by National Institute of Open Schooling, Government of India (2001)

• Member, Department Research Council, Department of HSS, IIT Palakkad (August 2024 onwards)
• Regional Coordinator, Unnat Bharat Abhiyan Regional Coordinating Institution, IIT Palakkad (November 2023 onwards)
• Member of  recruitment panel for Clinical Psychologist (June 2023)
• Chairperson, HSS HRC Course Committee Meeting, Spring semester 2024)
• Member, Board of Research (October 2023 onwards)
• Chairperson, HSS HRC Course Committee Meeting, Fall semester 2023
• Member, Library  Advisory Committee (Feb 2023-January 2025)
• Department Coordinator, Science Quest, May 2023
• Member of staff recruitment panel for JA(March 2023)

• Asian Bioethics Review  (SCOPUS Indexed)

• Qualitative Research in Psychology (SCOPUS Indexed)

• International Journal of Social Psychiatry (SCOPUS Indexed)

• Medical Anthropology: Cross Cultural Studies in Health and Illness (SCOPUS Indexed)

• Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology (SAGE)

• Social Epistemology (Taylor and Francis)

• Economic and Political Weekly (SCOPUS Indexed)

• Qualitative Health Research (SAGE)

• Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry (Taylor and Francis)

• Journal of Children's Services (Elsevier)

• Indian Journal of Social Work 

• Indian Journal of Medical Ethics (SCOPUS indexed)

• International Journal of Academic Medicine (SCOPUS indexed)

• Psychological Studies (Springer)

• Studies of Transition States and Societies (SCOPUS indexed)

• Medicine Access @ Point of Care  (SAGE Journal)

• International Journal of Social Research Methodlogy (Taylor & Francis Group)

• Discover Mental Health (Springer)

• Life Member, Association of Health Psychologists (20.02.2023 onwards)

• Life Member, Indian Science Congress Association (2012 onwards)

• Member, National Academy of Psychology, India (01-01-20222 to 31-12-2026) 

• Member, American Psychological Association - C2204046871 (2021-22)

• Registered as a licensed clinical psychologist in the Central Rehabilitation Register of Rehabilitation Council of India (CRR No: A 38243) [2014 onwards]

• GIAN course July 8-20, 2025

• Publishing partner, Human Library @ IIT Palakkad (2025)

•  Co-oragniser, UNCHAiN – Youth Ideathon to Combat Drug Abuse, as part of the efforts to promote awareness and gather practical, youth-driven ideas to combat drug abuse by the District Administration Palakkad in association with UBA RCI IITPKD, Kerala Police, Kerala State Excise Department, Department of General Education and Social Justice Department, Government of Kerala. 

• Screening of the documentary, Wounds of Pyre: Inside the minds of cremation workers through UBA RCI IITPKD -MHI Mumbai-PDPL at Palakkad District Public Library, Palakkad, 30 May 2025

• Can You See Me?” Re-imagining college mental health, Ashtamgam Ayurveda Chikitsalayam and Vidyapeedham (Ayurveda College), Koottanad, Palakkad,  April  2025. 

• Field visit to PHC as part of the HS 5009N course, March 22, 2025.

• Can You See Me?” Re-imagining college mental health, Jawaharlal  College of Engineering & Technology, Ottappalam, Palakkad, 26 March,  2025. 

• Can You See Me?” Re-imagining college mental health, NSS College of Engineering Palakkad, 4 March 2025. 

• Can You See Me?” Re-imagining college mental health, Ahalia School of Enginering and Technology, Ahalia Integrated Campus, Palakkad, 18 February 2025.

• One-Day Workshop on  Substance Abuse Among Youth for teachers and students of higher educational institutions  on March 2 (Sunday) from 9 a.m - 4 p.m at the IMA Hall (Google map link), Near Fort Maidan, Palakkad by  Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) Regional Coordinating Institute (RCI),  IIT Palakkad in association with Indian Medical Association (IMA) Palakkad branch, March 2, 2025. 
• Online lecture by Dr Nikita Hari, Head of Teaching and Design Support Group (TDSG), Oxford University on August 7, 2024 as part of UBA IIT Palakkad lecture series.
• Online lecture by Prof Dr Rajagopal, Padma Sri awardee, former Professor of Anesthesiology, Government Medical College, Kozhikode and pioneer of palliative care movement in India on June 25, 2024 as part of UBA IIT Palakkad lecture series ( (Youtube link)
• Organised an online lecture by Examining National Mental Health Law from the lens of the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities by Prof. Amita Dhanda, Professor Emerita and Head, Centre for Disability Studies and  Centre for Legal Philosophy and Justice Education, NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad in association with NCI UBA IIT Delhi on 12th April 2024 (Youtube link)
• Organised an online lecture by Prof. Dr. Jaswant Guzder, Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia and former Professor & Head, Division of Child Psychiatry, Jewish General Hospital, Canada in association with NCI UBA IIT Delhi on March 27, 2024 (Youtube link)