I am Seetha Ramanathan, a psychiatrist who trained and practiced in both India and the United States. I specialize in adult psychiatry, with additional training in addiction medicine, reproductive psychiatry, community psychiatry, and AI-enabled and digital mental health. Over the past twenty-five years, my work has spanned clinical care, research, and systems-level mental health efforts. More recently, I founded Sera Psychiatry for Women, a practice created to support women through the mental health challenges that accompany life transitions. I believe that every transition tells a story, and my clinical work focuses on understanding those stories, placing symptoms in context, and building compassionate, evidence-informed care plans that can evolve over time.

My clinical experience is closely intertwined with research and systems-level work. Across academic, community, and health-system settings, I have been involved in research, program development, and implementation efforts focused on improving access, quality, and equity in mental health care. What has shaped my work most, however, is communication—listening carefully to how people describe their experiences, where systems fall short, and how the words we use can either clarify or compound distress.

My experience has taught me that good care—and meaningful health change—depends deeply on language. Mental health is often surrounded by uncertainty: uncertainty about what is “normal,” about when support is appropriate, and about how to navigate care that can feel opaque or intimidating. I believe good mental health care requires speaking different “languages” for different audiences. With patients, this means communication that is clear, honest, and humane, with room for curiosity—and, when appropriate, the occasional shared laugh. In professional and systems contexts, it means translating complexity into approaches that are ethical, grounded, and practical. I aim to demystify mental health without flattening it, offering language that helps people orient themselves before deciding what kind of support, if any, they may want.

Outside of work, I’m parenting two children, traveling when I can, and taking photos of ordinary moments. This blog is a space where clinical evidence, lived experience, and human conversation come together, with the goal of making mental health feel more understandable, less intimidating, and more human.