Will Psychotherapy Dilute Indian Collectivism?

Part 1: An Introduction to the Indian-Collectivism Essay Series

Written by Alekhya Velidanda

When I think of Indian culture, I think of forced arranged marriages and angry mother-in-laws. I think of how neighbourhood aunties double over their balcony railings, frothing at the mouth to spy on teenage children and “catch them in the act” of I don’t even know what. I think of how each thought and act and breath and wince is connected back to family status. I see adults around me handicapped by the forceful intrusions of their community. 

I despise collectivism. I think that waiting around for the approval and disapproval of other people is a cop-out from taking any individual responsibility for your actions. In my opinion, we’ve been breeding a race of passive Indians who, across centuries, have only ever taken no for an answer. They live their lives in service of “other” and “bigger” agendas, but I think their biggest agenda is only to avoid ever looking inwards. 

Since I’m dishing out opinions, here’s another one: I’m a deeply dense and ignorant asshole. 

It’s frightening to think that these were my views about India, Indians and Indian-ness when I first became a therapist. I dove straight into working with middle-class Indian employees whose struggles with families, authorities and morals made me solidify my resentment towards collectivism. 

“Collectivism” can be understood as a way that people within a community relate to each other.  In more collectivistic societies, you will find that people abide by family values, obedience, discipline and strict order. You’ll find more rule followers than rule breakers. You’ll find people who work and act for the needs of their collective, often forgoing their own pleasures. In collectivistic societies, people seek cooperation and interdependence over individual autonomy, as a means to solve major concerns in their lives. 

My education surrounded me with upper-class, English-speaking and liberal individuals. My curriculum nursed some strong anti-establishment opinions within me. This bled into my understanding (hatred) of Indian societies. What began as a well-intended philosophy to help my clients recognise the oppressive systems in their lives quickly became a tirade of cornering them into a woke and liberal outlook. These forced perspectives could never take any real shape in their lives. It was simply not based in their cultural truths. 

No, it could only fit into my polished and uber-individual life.

One of my subconscious goals in therapy was to drive the collectivism and passivity out of my clients. I tried to do it gently, and when they didn’t take well to my nudges, I’d increase my crudeness and confrontation. Looking back, I wonder if I became the same kind of authority figure that I was asking them to rebel against. My western and blindly liberal views of psychotherapy were trying to dilute the legitimacy of their culture. 

Western and blindly liberal views of psychotherapy do dilute the legitimacy of their culture. 

There are subtle and subconscious forces that uphold prejudiced and colonial opinions in therapy. What we see today as “healthy individualism” and “healthy relationships” were theorised by Western thinkers who observed their own populations. I simply think it’s time we observe ours. 

Much to the utter disbelief of my fifteen-year-old self, I’m now taking in the safety and warmth of a collective society. I see how community saves its people. Family is an unbelievable source of support for psychiatric patients who are finding their way back into society.  Children are able to fall back on the knowledge, money and resources of the elderly members in the family when they enter an oppressive job market. Connection and culture are the lifeblood of everyone around me. I’m not too sure that we can survive modern-day demands in isolation. Collectivism has its self-justifying and oppressive parts, but those are mere parts of a larger whole. 

I’ve had the privilege of my clients resisting my wokeness. In their resistance, I found my arrogance. 

This essay series on Indian collectivism tries to understand why Indian culture is the way that it is, how therapy is often colonially pompous, and what therapists would need to consider when working with a strongly community-oriented psyche. How do we confront larger-than-life oppressive forces in society? How can we possibly be okay with this rigid patriarchal insistence within the community? What do we do when we witness perpetrators of social judgement and moral entitlement? 

Is psychotherapy capable of diluting Indian culture? Do we possess the potential to become such a destructive power? I strongly doubt it. However, I can firmly tell you that psychotherapy can shame it, ostracize it and mark it as growth’s enemy. It is capable of paralyzing people from ever embracing their community morals, if it is performed with the colonial scripts that we have all been handed during our formal trainings.  I am Exhibit A of the same. 

Prepare yourself to find nuances that leave you challenging the strong pro and anti opinions you’ve fostered in your practice. I hope I find some awakening in my research. This is much overdue for myself , my therapeutic community and my well-intentioned intellectual readers. 

Hello! If you’ve come this far, let me know! Your feedback and readership mean a lot to The Trade of Therapy. TOT strives to create illustrative and critical content that helps our new age of urban thinkers understand their inner and outer worlds. 

Up next, we will be exploring how the vastness and smallness of generational Indian collectivism tiptoes in silence, into the therapy room.