Ms. Hvovi Bhagwagar

Ms Hvovi Bhagwagar is a Psychologist and Psychotherapist, with over 20 years of experience as a clinical practitioner in her independent venture “Manashni” at Powai, Mumbai. She did her Masters in Clinical Psychology from SNDT, University, Mumbai and is currently a Ph.D scholar at Tata Inst of Social Sciences (TISS). She is also an “International Affiliate” with the American Psychological Association (APA). Apart from private practice she also volunteers with NGOs and writes regularly for various publications. Her private practice involves providing treatment to clients with mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and adult survivors of abuse and neglect. Her area of interest is in working with Psychological trauma and she has undergone trainings and supervision for working with complex traumatization. She has also presented papers and posters at various National and International conferences on Trauma Care, and trained groups of students and mental health professionals on Trauma Counselling.Raising awareness on Mental Health has been an area of passion for her and she been invited as a trainer and panel expert at various Mental Health events organised by Times of India, Holy Spirit Hospital, Arpan, Godrej, NHRD, Vasantha Memorial, Schizophrenia Awareness Association, Tata Communications, PatientsEngage, NIIT, BARC, Fortis Hospital among others. She also writes to raise awareness about Mental Health through her blog, and through the media. A few articles and quotes have been featured in Mumbai Mirror, MidDay, Femina, Bombay Times, DNA, Hindustan Times, Complete Wellbeing among a few. For the kiddy newspaper RobinAge, she ran a Personality Quiz Section, creating over 46 original quizzes for children.Following the Mental health crisis during the COVID-19 Pandemic, she was part of a radio show and various other social media initiatives imparting psycho-education on Mental health. She is currently a Panel expert for Bipolar India, a peer support group for Bipolar Disorder and Depression that hosts monthly meetings to support the needs of the community. She has also initiated two EMDR supervision groups for clinical practitioners with EMDR consultants from the US and Europe. Hvovi lives by the belief that being a good psychotherapist comes from being a good human being. In her endeavour towards balance, she has discovered that spirituality, writing and volunteer activities bring the inner peace she needs for effective therapeutic work. She has been awarded "Women's Achiever 2017" by the Young Environmentalists and is also the recent recipient of the Times Healthcare Achiever Award, 2018 in the Young Achiever category from the Times of India. Her endeavour is to bring to India and make available to clients more advanced and approaches to mental health. She believes that the path to happiness is stable metal health and her dream is to spread as much awareness about mental illness as possible through her work.