By Chahat Mahajan
Whenever we talk about mental health and the issues connected to it, we often overlook how broader systems shape psychological well-being. Healing or a therapeutic alliance cannot exist in isolation. We need to recognize the role of systemic structures that directly influence mental health conditions.
Every person’s well-being is intertwined with systems of power. We live under the overlapping influences of caste, gender, patriarchy, race, religion, sexual orientation, and more. Therefore, we cannot truly address mental health without acknowledging these intersections. Often in therapy, distress arises not solely from an individual’s crisis but from oppressive social structures. Mental health cannot be separated from systemic realities, nor reduced to personal resilience or strength alone.
“The system that contributes to mental health also decides who gets access to heal.”
When we talk about gender, for instance, women often enter therapy carrying not only personal experiences but also the weight of systemic oppression. We can teach grounding or safety techniques, but these tools alone cannot protect women in a world where unsafe environments and weak policies continue to exist. The system itself needs to create safer spaces for women.
Similarly, when working with clients from marginalized or minority communities, it becomes essential to recognize our own privilege and the oppression they have endured. Their struggles cannot be separated from the social, cultural, and political contexts they come from. Therapy that ignores these realities risks becoming detached from lived experiences.
According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, individuals at the lower levels of the hierarchy focus on fulfilling their basic necessities food, water, and shelter. When these needs dominate, mental health care becomes a privilege rather than a universal right, accessible mainly to those whose foundational needs are already met.
“For many, therapy isn’t even a consideration, survival takes priority.”
Despite the poor conditions, mental health care continues to be deprioritized, with little to no proper implementation within primary health and non-health sectors, reflecting how far we still have to go in making mental health a true public priority.
Until mental health care is recognized as a social and political priority, integrated into policy, education, and community structures. we will continue to treat symptoms rather than causes.
