“Working with people and helping people work through their emotions is where I feel I belong and want to make a difference.”

Thirty-year-old Hyderabad-based Pranav Varma has a gentle demeanor that doesn’t quite match his passion for psychology. With a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology from Christ University in Bangalore, Pranav is a practicing therapist who admits that therapy has been a transformative process for him. 

“We usually think that the person undergoing therapy is the only one transforming. When in reality, the process is as transformational for the therapist as it is for the person undergoing therapy,” says Pranav.

Most therapy consists of managing our emotions – and Pranav admits that delving deep into the psyche of emotions fascinates him. “Two people may have different experiences, but the emotions are so universal that they intuitively bring people to experience the same feelings, enabling them to help each other get through the darkest of tunnels filled with emotions like sorrow, grief, and pain,” he explains. 

Pranav’s therapeutic approach is framed around a psychodynamic and relational lens perspective. According to him, when we experience stress, anger, or any emotion which feels overbearing at the moment, the weight of that emotion is not just from the moment but from the accumulation of several experiences with that emotion. “When grieving the loss of a loved one, we feel a rush of emotions that are a mosaic of all the experiences we’ve had with the person, and so the emotion we feel cannot be boxed in just based on the present moment. We are so affected by the people in our lives that everything we feel is a product of our relational dynamic, so every emotion we feel has a past affecting how we feel in the present,” he explains.

These initial years of being a therapist have been daunting, he admits. But every session has given him understanding and experience. “To be a good therapist, you have to allow yourself to be a client. Because only by learning to connect with yourself can you help others learn how to connect with themselves.” he says. 

“Be in your therapy. Because if you feel an emotion with the person you’re speaking with, the chances are that this may be how others in their life experience them which is something that can help you better understand how your client forms relationships.”

While Pranav loves his individual sessions, he has a special place in his heart for group therapy. “In a group session, however, there are more ears, and more people to help, reflect, offer different perspectives and even hold different parts of you. And for the things you can’t seem to make sense of, you have more people to share the load with. The best part about a group session is that everyone is a client and a therapist.”

Peer support groups aren’t a new concept. Research states that peer support originated in France in the 19th century. It didn’t really take off, however, until the 1970s, when survivors started to find comfort in support groups. A support group is a safe place consisting of a group of people who are facing the same issue where the members of the group express themselves to receive and offer support and comfort to each other. 

Pranav has helped to run such groups/spaces on depression, anger, grief, and conflict management. He envisions running group support sessions in the near future along with engagement groups which are essential spaces for people to engage and interact with each other and reflect on their experiences. 

Pranav is also an active member of a community wherein the members explore mental health topics by looking at how they are building relationships with each other and with themselves. “Part of my role as a community member is to help the members by bringing myself in and being honest about my own emotions and experiences. Another part is to facilitate discussions, provide support for members who are struggling and to try and look at aspects of our experience which aren’t being talked about.”

And what’s the most difficult part of being a therapist? That people expect quick fixes to their problems, he says. “But I am a firm believer- if you help a horse drink water, it’ll quench its thirst once. But if you teach it to drink water, it’ll become capable of drinking water by itself for the rest of its life. This is my approach. Even if it takes longer, I’m willing to teach my clients to drink the water by themselves or make them understand how to manage their emotions.”

Constantly working with people on an intense level can be draining, and it’s why Pranav recommends that self-care should be part of the essential toolkit of a therapist. For Pranav, destressing comes from cooking. 

“I like to cook, and when I cook, I feel more connected to myself and find my emotions settle into a state of calming resonance as I lose myself in doing what makes me experience life fully in that moment. While talk therapy is one of the best ways to channel, understand and work through human emotions as an adult, it is as important to find doing something that makes you lose yourself in the moment and gets you to taste a slice of life in those immersive moments of joy,” says Pranav.

And those immersive moments of joy are also what he finds from therapy too. It’s what, after all, drew him to psychology: to understand the immense power of our emotions and to work with them and lead healthier lives.

Want to connect with Pranav? Find him here.