In conversation with Kanika Agarwal, Founder, MindPeers

1) How did MindPeers come into being? 

MindPeers was founded in Jan 2020 with a vision to remove the stigma around mental health and make qualitative mental wellness accessible and affordable for individuals, corporates, schools and academies

From getting yourself diagnosed real-time to getting the right qualified and specialized therapist for your needs, MindPeers has an end to end solution. Besides human intervention, our tech platform gives personalized therapeutic techniques/recommendations to help one in self-care so they can independently take care of their mental wellness for a lifetime. 

Three things we wanted to focus on since our inception 

1) Affordability

We wanted mental health to be affordable so that it becomes more accessible. If mental health is affordable more people can access it and it becomes as normal as seeking medical help for physical ailments

2. Quality and Standardization

 In India, there is a serious dearth of quality mental health professionals.

According to an estimate by the Global Burden of Disease study, 200 million people in India have experienced a mental health issue of some form, and nearly half of those suffering from depressive or anxiety disorders.

A study by the Indian Journal of Psychiatry states that it will take 42 years to meet the requirement for psychiatrists, and 76 years for clinical psychologists

Through MindPeers, we are striving to change that. We want to make quality therapy affordable at cheaper rates so that therapy becomes mainstream. We prioritize quality by hiring RCI Licensed psychologist and certified therapist and training them 

3. MindPeers’ scientific Employee Assistance Program based employee assistance program designed for corporates and schools is taking care of mental health at the micro and macro level and can bring down healthcare costs significantly. We strive to make you the best company to work for when it comes to mental health standards in India.

2) How did the idea come about?

My first company is HQ’d in Singapore and was launched in 2016. The company witnessed a 90% growth and hit a 2 million turnover in the 2nd year of its commencement. I overworked myself to the extent that I started getting panic attacks and anxiety regularly in 2017. Being an Indian based out of Singapore, I wanted to seek therapy for someone who could understand my situation and loneliness better, so naturally, a therapist based out of India was my natural choice. But the whole process of finding a comfortable therapist at an affordable level was just so difficult. I was asked by many around me to keep quiet and not talk about it since talking about mental health has a lot of stigma around it. I decided the day my first company reaches the milestone I have set for, I will launch my 2nd company in the mental health space. 

3) Do you think affordability is a challenge when it comes to seeking therapy for mental health issues? What made you choose to offer the services for mental health at such reasonable rates?

Lack of awareness coupled with high costs of therapy sessions acts as a deterrent for people to seek help for mental health issues. 

Affordability has always been a challenge when it comes to seeking therapy for mental health issues. The reason we decided to offer therapy for as low as 300 rupees per session was that we wanted people to experience the wonders quality lot mental health services can do for them. We wanted to start this trend of providing quality therapy at an affordable rate so that it becomes more accessible and mainstream. 

We at MindPeers want to make seeking help for mental ailments become as normal as physical ailments. Once it becomes mainstream, it will be seen as an indispensable part of leading a healthy life. 

4) Is there any trend you have noticed in mental health in the last few months? What are the primary issues people are dealing with?

Post lockdown we have seen an 85 percent MoM increase in demand. People have been stressed out due to uncertain job situations, social isolation, economic impacts of COVID, etc

Some of the issues that we have noticed in the last few months:

1) Domestic abuse-related issues like trauma, self-esteem, body image

2) People have been anxious due to social isolation, stress and future uncertainties 

3) WFH has blurred boundaries between work and personal life. That has been causing anxiety and stress among people 

4) Sleep disorders 

5) Tell us about the services you are offering to corporates? What are companies doing to ensure employee wellness?

At MindPeers, we have introduced India’s first tech-based Employee assistance program that is helping corporates in taking care of mental health at the macro level.

We want organizations to understand the returns they get when they invest in the mental wellness of their employees. And how it can help them in increasing employee productivity and reducing the attrition rate. Our goal is to make mental health objective and ROI driven so that it occupies an important place in the employee wellness agenda. Our solutions such as workshops, personalized toolkits, therapy interventions, etc provide insights into the organization's overall health, productivity, and morale levels of employees. These macro-level insights help in determining overall organizational health. Our India wide campaign called MindPeersAtWork spreads awareness amongst corporates on the importance of mental health. 

6) What, according to you, are the challenges that people in India usually face when it comes to mental health? 

Three common challenges that we have seen so far in our journey: 

According to a study, between 1990 to 2017, one in seven people in the country have faced some mental health issue ranging from depression, anxiety to severe conditions such as schizophrenia.

Often symptoms like chest pains, body pain, shortness of breath are attributed to physical health issues. People don’t realise that it could also be a result of any mental health condition.

Lack of quality services: In India, there is a serious dearth of mental health practitioners. According to a report by THE LANCET Psychiatry, there are just 2 mental health workers and .3 psychiatrists per 1 lakh people in India. 

There is also a lack of qualitative mental health professionals at reasonable rates. There is a general lack of understanding of choosing the right therapist for oneself. One might be going through Depression but ends up going to a therapist specialising in anxiety.

Taboo - There still is a taboo around mental health and seeking help for it. Our Society often perceives those seeking help for any mental issue as weak. We want to see a day where going for therapy is as normal as going to a doctor for any physical ailment. We want to be a catalyst in that.