Amrita Narayanan, Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice. Amrita explored history and French at Middlebury College, Vermont, when she was an undergraduate. She achieved a Master of Science (|M.S.) in clinical psychology, as well as a Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D). in clinical psychology from the Stanford University Psy.D. consortium in California (Doctorate awarded in 2007).
Amrita received her California license to practice psychotherapy in 2009, following her doctorate. She is presently working as the unit psychologist at Napa State Facility, a residential facility in California. She underwent psychoanalytic orientation from the Indian Psychoanalytical Society after moving back to India, and in 2019 she received membership as a member of the International Psychoanalytic Association.
Amrita's main fields of interest in research are the aesthetics and psychodynamics of gender in sexuality, as well as the cultural impacts in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. Her pieces have been featured in popular press magazines like Microsoft Outlook, Open Magazine, and India Today; newspapers like The Hindu and The Indian Express; and scholarly publications like Psychodynamic Practice and Psychoanalytic Review. Her most recent honours include the Homi Bhabha Fellowship, the Sudhir Kakar Prize for psychoanalytic writing, and the Taylor & Francis Prize.
Her collection of poetry, short prose, and fiction translated from Indian languages, The Parrots of Desire: 3000 Years of Erotica in India (Aleph Books, 2018), is connected by an introduction she wrote on the main topics of Indian erotic writing. Harper Collins (2021) published Pha(bu)llus: A Cultural History of the Phallus, to which she contributed. Oxford University Press will publish her book In a Rapture of Distress: Women's Sexuality in Modern India later this year.
