Ayurvedic Psychiatry: What Happens When We See the Mind Differently?
A Fresh Look at Mental Health Beyond Just the Brain
Namaste and welcome!
A New Series Begins: Ayurveda & the Mind
Last week I mentioned that something special was coming—a deeper dive into the world of the mind, seen through the lens of Ayurveda. Today’s essay is the beginning of that journey.
If you’ve been following my newsletter, you already know how often I circle back to the mind—not just because it’s where so many of our struggles and questions begin, but because Ayurveda has such a beautiful, layered, and non-pathologizing way of understanding it. That’s especially rare in a world where mental health conversations can sometimes feel clinical, rigid, or incomplete.
This is the first in a series of essays where we’ll explore what happens when we bring together the best of two worlds: the diagnostic clarity of modern psychiatry and the timeless wisdom of Ayurveda.
Let’s begin with a question that shifted everything for me:
What if the mind isn’t limited to the brain—and what if that changes how we heal?
I took my first psychology class in college, like many others, as part of the standard curriculum. But I was instantly hooked. It helped that the professor was young, stylish, and charismatic—probably in his early thirties, which seemed impossibly mature to my eighteen-year-old self. I decided then and there that I wanted to become a psychologist. At the time, I didn’t even know the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist, but I knew I wanted to understand how people thought, felt, and changed.
My education introduced me to psychology through the lens of diagnosis. We studied neurotransmitters, behavioral conditioning, and the DSM—a meticulous catalogue of mental health disorders, each defined by symptoms, patterns, and protocols. The model was orderly and fascinating. It gave language to suffering. It gave form to things that once felt formless: depression, anxiety, trauma, personality.
Later, in my early career, I worked with children with developmental disabilities and their families. We used behavior modification techniques with the children, and with the parents, supportive counseling—sometimes blending parent training with what we might now call psychoeducation. We focused on outcomes and observable progress. There were treatment plans, assessments, and measurable goals. And often, the work felt meaningful. But even then, I sensed that something essential was being left out.
I didn’t know how to articulate it at the time. But I noticed that the systems we used to offer help didn’t always leave space for the full human story. For the inner world. For the daily rhythms, the emotional textures, the ways people carry their histories in their bodies, not just their minds.
Years later, as I began studying Ayurveda, I finally found a framework that offered what had always felt absent. It was the first time I encountered a model that distinguished the mind from the brain. Not everything landed immediately—after all, I had spent most of my adult life steeped in the Western constructs of psychology. But there was something undeniably compelling about this older, subtler way of understanding human experience.
Ayurveda, the ancient Indian system of medicine, offers a different foundation for understanding the mind. Its approach is not a rebuttal to psychiatry, but a deepening of it. In Ayurvedic thought, the mind is not seen as a separate, isolated entity, nor as solely a function of brain chemistry. It is part of an interconnected whole—a dynamic interplay of body, spirit, breath, environment, and memory.
In classical Ayurvedic texts, mental health falls under the branch of Bhūtavidyā, one of the eight divisions of Ayurvedic medicine. Loosely translated, it means “the science of unseen forces.” It suggests that mental disturbances are not only psychological or neurological but energetic, spiritual, and systemic.
Two frameworks form the core of Ayurvedic psychology: the three gunas—sattva (clarity), rajas (activity), and tamas (inertia); and the three doshas—vata, pitta, and kapha. These are not abstract ideas. They are forces present in all of us, shaping everything from our digestion to our dreams.
For readers unfamiliar with the gunas, think of them as mental qualities that influence how we think, perceive, and respond to life.
Sattva is the quality of light, harmony, and balance. It’s what allows us to feel calm, clear, generous, and present.
Rajas is the energy of movement and ambition—it gives us drive, but when excessive, can lead to restlessness, agitation, or overthinking.
Tamas is the force of inertia and dullness. A little tamas helps us sleep. Too much, and we feel stuck, heavy, depressed, or disconnected.
These qualities are always in flux. You might wake up with a sattvic mindset—hopeful, clear-headed—and by afternoon find yourself pulled into rajas through overstimulation or tamas through emotional exhaustion.The key, according to Ayurveda, is not to eliminate any guna entirely, but to increase sattva and manage the others wisely.
This way of thinking felt revolutionary to me. Mental health, in this system, is not defined by the absence of symptoms—but by the presence of sattva. By clarity, steadiness, and ease. And imbalance is not pathology—it is misalignment. Something to tend to, not something to fear.
In Ayurvedic psychiatry, the treatment is layered. There is Sattvavajaya chikitsa—a form of Ayurvedic psychotherapy focused on strengthening the mind and restoring inner balance. There are also herbs, daily rituals, personalized dietary guidance, breathwork, mantra, spiritual inquiry. But at its core, this model is about honoring the whole person. Not just what they report, but how they live.
What has stayed with me most is how generous this approach feels. It does not reject the usefulness of medication or the structure of psychiatric care, especially in moments of crisis. But it asks different questions — questions many people, particularly those who’ve found only partial relief in conventional treatment, are still waiting to be asked.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be exploring more about Ayurvedic psychiatry through conversations with Dr. Apoorva, a psychiatrist based in India who has trained in both Western psychiatry and Ayurveda. Her work builds a rare and necessary bridge between these two systems. I’m honored to collaborate with her.
Please know:
This is not a manifesto for one system over another. It’s an invitation to widen the lens through which we see mental health. To include the rhythms of the body, the weight of memory, the power of daily choices, and the subtle strength of spirit. Sometimes healing begins not with a label, but with a deeper kind of listening.
Did anything you just read make you pause or nod along?
I’m curious—did this perspective on the mind spark any new thoughts or questions? Maybe it made you reflect on your own experiences, or wonder what a more whole-person approach to healing could look like. I’d love to hear whatever came up for you. I always read every reply.
Until next time,
It’s a balancing of yin and yang, masculine and feminine, the intuitive spiritual and emotional knowledge of Ayurveda with the more logical and clinical knowledge of western medicine. It’s really necessary to have both and western medicine is too heavy on masculine principles. I really appreciate this article and wish I could read the original texts on Bhūtavidya.
It was great to hear about your personal background and how you became interested in ayurveda! The one thing that came to mind was — patience. It requires patience to listen to your mind and body etc, and that can be intimidating (or to me at least).