Ms Akriti Mehta

Akriti Mehta is a researcher on the EURIKHA project based at the Service User Research Enterprise (SURE). She joined King’s College London in October 2017 and is the lead on the Global South part of EURIKHA. As part of her role, she maps the movements led by persons with psychosocial disabilities, mental health service users, and survivors of psychiatry in Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America. In addition to leading the data collection (interviews) and analysis in the Global South, she plays an active role in the overall conceptualisation and working of the project.  

She began her journey towards user-led and survivor research with an academic background in psychology (Pune and Bangalore, India; 2009 and 2012). She then pursued an Msc in Global Mental Health at King’s College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine for which she received the Global Mental Health Prize (2017). Her experiences of mental distress and mental health services as well as the work of other users, survivors, and persons with psychosocial disabilities led her to critically re-examine what ‘madness’ meant.  

Her broader research interests expand beyond mental health and include psychosocial disabilities; critical disability studies; survivor research; feminist, queer and postcolonial theory; knowledge productions; critical race theories; community activism and advocacy; UNCRPD. 

She is looking to pursue doctoral studies with a project that explores the constructions of psychosocial disabilities and their use in activism and advocacy. She is keen to understand the points of collaborations and contestations between the psychosocial disability movement and the mainstream disability movement. 

Research Interests 

• Critical disability studies 
• Feminist, queer, and postcolonial theory 
• Survivor research 

Expertise and Public Engagement

Akriti has written for survivor platforms in Asia: 

• 2018 - A Tale of Two Conferences: The disconnect between Global Mental Health and its discontents. Mad in Asia 
• 2018 - A response to the Lancet Commission on Global Mental Health and Sustainable Development Goals. Transforming Communities for Inclusion- Asia Pacific  

Key publications 

• Lisa Cosgrove, China Mills, Justin M. Karter, Akriti Mehta & Jayasree Kalathil (2019) A critical review of the Lancet Commission on global mental health and sustainable development: Time for a paradigm change, Critical Public Health, DOI: 10.1080/09581596.2019.1667488 
• Lisa Cosgrove, China Mills, Jay Amsterdam, Iona Heath, Akriti Mehta, Jayasree Kalathil & Allen Shaughnessy (2019). Global Mental Health Correspondence, The Lancet, DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)30945-6