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Dr Chitra Subrahmanian is an Educator and Psychotherapist living and working in Geneva, Switzerland.
Born and raised in India, Chitra completed a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and English Literature from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. She pursued higher education in the United States, obtaining a Master of Science in Counselor Education with a specialization in community counseling from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA and a Doctorate in Marriage and Family Therapy from Purdue University, Indiana, USA.
Deeply committed to community level initiatives, Dr Subrahmanian has worked in mental health agencies in the US and Mumbai, India, where she founded and ran an NGO, called Counseling and Allied Services for AIDS (CASA), providing counseling and support for people affected by HIV/AIDS.
Since 2000, she has been living and working in Switzerland. Since 2001, she has been working as Adjunct Professor of Psychology and Counseling at Webster University, Geneva, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses.
She also runs a private practice, specializing in psychotherapy from a systems perspective for Individuals, Couples, and Families and has extensive experience working with clients of many cultures and nationalities.
Through her engagement in the Master’s program in Clinical Psychology at Krea, Dr. Subrahmanian hopes to actively engage with students to pursue her research and training interests. A key commitment is to addressing the mental health gap in India by helping to create a cadre of culturally-sensitive mental health professionals; to promote research initiatives that expand our understanding of local realities and to develop services that benefit local communities.
Research
Her research interests encompass a range of subjects in the realm of the family and psychotherapy. Rituals and routines as natural, spontaneously occurring patterned interactions in social systems, especially the family, has been a a topic of interest since her doctoral dissertation on the subject. The usefulness of of rituals and routines in providing a lens into family, culture and social structure as well as their utility in lending meaning, promoting coping, adjustment and stability in a variety of contexts and across life cycle stages make them an apt subject for examining similarities and differences across cultures and as apt interventions in the counseling setting as well as in work and learning environments.
Professor Subrahmanian is also deeply interested in counselling and psychotherapy training in cross-cultural settings, the applicability of current psychotherapy models in cross cultural-settings and in the culturally sensitive application of psychological interventions with diverse populations. Additional areas of interest include: The role and uses of AI in psychotherapy; Mechanisms of change in Counselling and Psychotherapy and Professional Ethics in cross-cultural settings.
Publications
Roberts, J., Abu-Baker, K.,Fernandez, C.D.,, Garcia, N.C., Fredman, G., Kamya, H., Higarza, Y.M., de Leff, J.F., Messent, P, Nakamura, S.I., Reid, F.T., Sim, T., Subrahmanian, C, & Vega, R.Z. (2014). Up Close: Family Therapy Challenges and Innovations Around the World. Family Process, 53(3), 544-576. DOI:10.1111/famp.12093
Subrahmanian, C. (1998) Rituals in family life: A qualitative study of clinical and non-clinical families. http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/dissertations/AAI9314085/
Teaching Modules
Over the years, Professor Subrahmanian has taught a range of courses in Psychology and Counseling at Webster University Geneva, including:
At Krea University, she plans to teach the following courses:
