Miraj U. Desai

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Assistant Professor at Yale University

This article situates the role of psychological investigations in analyses of social problems like colonialism and racism, via a phenomenological reading of the writings of Frantz Fanon. Emerging scholarship on Fanon's use of psychology is beginning to elucidate how his style of analysis enables an interweaving of psychological insights with sociop...

This book concerns clinical psychology, but it is most concerned with the world outside the clinic. That world—where culture, history, and economy are found—radically impacts the public’s mental health. However these worldly considerations often do not feature centrally in the science and practice of clinical psychology, a subfield of psychology se...

There are increased efforts to improve patient-provider relations and engagement within North American mental health systems. However, it is unclear how these innovations impact care for ethnic minorities, a group that continues to face social and health disparities. This study examined one such engagement innovation-person-centered care planning-t...

It remains to be seen whether the American Psychological Association’s new apology and resolutions on racism will help redress longstanding inequities in the field. To be sure, critiques of psychological science vis-à-vis racism have been around for decades, despite being ignored by psychological science, even when spoken by Dr. King—in his profoun...

This article presents a study exploring structural biases within mental health organizations, in the context of person-centered care—an emerging framework for health systems globally. Findings revealed how surrounding institutional structures conditioned a powerful influence on clinical operations, in which there is a risk for clients to be systemi...

Importance: Asian American physicians have experienced a dual pandemic of racism and COVID-19 since 2020; understanding how racism has affected the learning environment of Asian American medical students is necessary to inform strategies to promoting a more inclusive medical school environment and a diverse and inclusive workforce. While prior res...

This chapter spells out research methods specifically designed to center on the "person," as a center of experience and agency. It gives the historical background of phenomenological qualitative research methods, spells out procedures developed by Amedeo Giorgi, and illustrates the method with synopses of the methods and findings used in original r...

Despite increased societal focus on structural racism, and its negative impact on health, empirical research within mental health remains limited relative to the magnitude of the problem. The current study—situated within a community-engaged project with members of a predominantly Black and African American church in the northeastern US—collaborati...

Introduction Within the history of psychology and phenomenology, people with lived experience of mental illness have often served as participants in research, but far less as co-researchers themselves. There is now a growing movement focused on “participatory” research, where people with lived experience directly contribute to various stages of the...

Residential displacement following disasters may strongly impact mental health and wellbeing. However, relatively limited research has been devoted to this area. We investigated the impacts of landslide-displacement on mental health and wellbeing in Banjarnegara, Indonesia, with a focus on local understandings. We conducted qualitative interviews w...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating consequences for health, social, and economic domains, but what has received far less focus is the effect on people’s relationship to vital ecological supports, including access to greenspace. We assessed patterns of greenspace use in relation to individual and environmental factors and their relationship w...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating consequences for health, social, and economic domains, but what has received far less focus is the effect on people’s relationship to vital ecological supports, including access to greenspace. We assessed patterns of greenspace use in relation to individual and environmental factors and their relationship w...

Persons living with mental health challenges are at increased risk of stigma, social isolation, and social exclusion. Due to its emphasis on member participation and community, the clubhouse model of mental health may help address these issues. In this study, we examined experiences of social belonging and of various social determinants of mental h...

This chapter begins by placing phenomenological psychological research method in historical context. Husserl's ideas of intentionality and meaning are elaborated along with his articulation of the two basic constituents of phenomenological method-the attitude (epoché, reduction) and analysis (intentional, eidetic). The modifications of this method...

Participatory research, in which people with lived experience of the study phenomenon are involved as collaborators, has been conducted for decades; however, these innovations have struggled to take hold in mental health settings—until recently. The slow uptake of community partnered research in mental health has been unfortunate, especially becaus...

This brief article examines the social determinants of mental health for a group of Vietnam veterans who recently received a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this study, interviews were conducted with Vietnam-era veterans presenting for mental healthcare at the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), about 40 years after the Viet...

Violence is a serious public health problem in the United States, and a common risk factor for many forms of violence is the perpetrator’s motivation to achieve personal justice for past wrongs and injustices. Using a fictional transgression scenario to stimulate revenge feelings, we studied the preliminary efficacy of an intervention designed to m...

Research suggests that there may be divergences between scientific conceptualizations of depression and laypersons’ own viewpoints regarding these same experiences. We conducted a qualitative investigation of patients’ perspectives to examine these incongruences. The study used in-depth interviews of individuals who screened positive for depression...

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: This poster will present preliminary results from a study examining whether person-centered care planning—a new innovation in community mental health care—responds to the culture of, and helps reduce health disparities among, Latinx and Asian populations. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: The study was funded by an NIMH/NIH Admini...

In this chapter, we first examine why the world outside the clinic matters for clinical psychology, as well as offer a preliminary sketch of how travel and movement can serve as vehicles toward overcoming various insular tendencies of the field. We begin by introducing the four forms of insularity that plague the field—social-ecological, practical,...

In this chapter, we embark upon a historical journey, examining aspects of the lives and work of three individuals who attempted to incorporate the world outside the clinic into their theorizing about psychology and mental health: Frantz Fanon, Karen Horney, and Erich Fromm. These “worlded” clinicians waged important critiques of the psychological...

In conclusion, we discuss travel as practice and examine how clinical psychology can better participate in the life and movement(s) of the world. We draw on contemporary innovations in practice, as well as the movements of Gandhi and King, to broaden our categories of and for good mental health. We attempt to link—or, collapse the distinction betwe...

In this chapter, we examine the work of “worldly clinicians”—those whose work directly helped change the world and, as a result, helped enhance well-being for a great number. We examine the work and respective movements of two worldly clinicians in particular: Gandhi and King. The task of this chapter is to elucidate some of the key methods and ide...

In this chapter, we provide a methodological and theoretical justification for travel and movement in clinical psychology. We draw on various world traditions—Buddhism (especially Zen) and phenomenology (especially Husserl)—in order to both analyze and offer ways to overcome the problems of insularity. In so doing, we reposition the world and its b...

In this chapter, we pause to take stock of where we have come in our journey. We also rejoin our traveler mentioned at the outset and revisit their situation, now with an even greater awareness of the complex world they are facing. This brief pause, and moment of reflection, prepares us for the final leg of our journey, in which we return, with ren...

Research suggests that low rates of mental health service utilization are partly due to incongruence between patients’ viewpoints and the professional treatment models intended to help them. In order to shed light on this gap, this article presents the second in a series examining patients’ own perspectives on experiences that would be seen as indi...

There continues to be an increase in the number of Vietnam-era veterans receiving a diagnosis of PTSD in the Veterans Health Administration, nearly four decades after Vietnam. In the present study, our aim was to better understand what prompts Vietnam-era veterans to present to a VHA mental health clinic, and to determine the meaning of this experi...

This article details the history, possibility, limits, and ethics of cross-cultural travel as a qualitative method in psychology. The article provides a brief overview of the ambiguous relationship between psychology and culture and develops an account of the history of travel methods in psychology. It then analyzes an exemplary case of travel rese...

Two studies summarize the development and initial validation of the Multicultural Personality Inventory (MPI). In Study 1, the 115-item prototype MPI was administered to 415 university students where exploratory factor analysis resulted in a 70-item, 7-factor model. In Study 2, the 70-item MPI and theoretically related companion instruments were ad...

This study examined the extent to which racial disparities in service utilization exist in veterans (VA) and non-VA health care systems. An observational study design was used with a nationally representative sample of veterans. Logistic regression models were constructed using sociodemographic characteristics, health insurance and benefits, and he...

The current study investigated the lived experience of 12 parents of children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder in everyday cultural contexts in Goa, India. Narratives from parents collected between 2009 and 2010 were analyzed using the procedures of phenomenological psychology. Four temporal phases of parents' experience emerged from these data. Fi...

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are increasingly recognized in developing countries like India. However, little is known about the experiences of parents raising a child with ASD. This study aimed to describe the experiences of families in Goa, India with a view to understanding the unmet needs of families raising a child with ASD. Twenty in-depth...