Amrita Narayanan Psy.D. is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice. As an undergraduate Amrita read History and French at Middlebury College, Vermont. She earned a Masters 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). After receiving her doctorate, Amrita earned her license to practice psychotherapy in California (2009), working as the unit psychologist of Napa State Hospital, a residential hospital in California. After returning to India, she trained as a psychoanalyst via the Indian Psychoanalytical Society and was accepted as a member of the International Psychoanalytic Association in 2019.
Amrita’s research interests are in cultural factors in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, and the aesthetics and psychodynamics of gender in sexuality. Her writing has appeared in academic journals such as Psychodynamic Practice and Psychoanalytic Review; newspapers such as The Hindu and The Indian Express; and popular press periodicals such as Outlook, Open Magazine, and India Today. Her recent awards include the Taylor and Francis Prize for psychoanalytic writing, the Sudhir Kakar Prize for psychoanalytic writing, and the Homi Bhabha Fellowship. She was the editor of The Parrots of Desire: 3000 years of Erotica in India (Aleph Books, 2018) a collection of poems, short prose and fiction in translation from Indian languages, linked by her introductory essay on the central themes in Indian erotic literature. She was a contributor to Pha(bu)llus: a cultural history of the Phallus (Harper Collins, 2021). Her most recent book In a Rapture of Distress: Women’s Sexuality and Modern India was published in 2023 by Oxford University Press.
