Mental Health Awareness Month: Mother-Son Therapist Duo’s One-liners from Over 5,000 Sessions

Psychotherapist Alpana Awasthi and RECBT practitioner Aditya Awasthi share key insights from their experience

Mental Health Awareness Month: Mother-Son Therapist Duo’s One-liners from Over 5,000 Sessions

Psychotherapist Alpana Awasthi and RECBT practitioner Aditya Awasthi

Alpana Awasthi and Aditya Awasthi are a mother-son therapist duo who run The Thought Clinic.

“The paradox of increasing mental health awareness is that whenever you read about a mental health problem and its symptoms, you almost always realise you have it”, says Alpana Awasthi, a psychotherapist with over 12 years of experience, and the founder of The Thought Clinic. Aditya, her son, and a RE/CBT practitioner, joins in to say “There are only a few really bad therapists in the world that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone: Google, Instagram, TikTok and Alcohol. Never take their diagnosis”.

Mental health awareness today is both a milestone and a minefield. More people are talking, but fewer are doing the work. More people are aware, but still unsure what to do with that awareness.

Here are 10 most impactful lessons the duo have shared with hundreds of their clients:

10. Therapy doesn’t work, you have to make it work

“Therapy is not an Uber ride. You don’t pay, sit back, and arrive somewhere better”, says Aditya.

Insight is not healing. Knowing is not change. Talking is not action. Therapy is work. Think of it as a project, where your therapist is your teammate and the project is your life. The most important work actually happens between sessions. Awareness alone doesn’t change lives - practice does.

9. You CAN change, and that too, biologically

“You are not ‘just like that’. You are how you’ve been trained to be. The good news? You can be trained again.” says Alpana.

The human brain is not a fixed structure. Neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to rewire itself, is one of the most hopeful things about being human. The way you think can change the way you feel, and over time, it can even change the way your brain functions. We often say “this is just how I am”, but science disagrees. You’re not stuck - you’re always in motion, and therapy helps steer that motion in the direction you want.

8. You can’t “escape” bad feelings

“You can be sad in Sydney and angry in Amsterdam. Emotions can be ignored, not escaped.” says Alpana.

There’s a growing obsession with “escaping” stress - whether it’s through travel, socialising, bingeing, or substances. But a change in scenery does not guarantee a change in emotional state. You can be surrounded by friends and still feel alone. The true secret of mental health lies in the number of things you can do while sitting in the same room as distress before you jump to run out of that room.

7. Therapy is not only for times of distress

“Coming to therapy only when you are feeling bad is like sending your car for service only when it breaks down”, says Alpana.

Waiting for a breakdown to seek help often leads to deeper, more complex issues. Therapy can be proactive, not just reactive. It can help you work on your goals, build healthier habits, improve relationships, and prevent crises. In fact, most high-performing high-achieving individuals continue working with therapists and coaches even when they are not in distress, because therapy also helps them achieve their developmental goals. That’s why they have a therapist on their speed dials!

6. The goal of humans is to be rational

“We weren’t born to be ruled by moods. That’s why evolution gave us a prefrontal cortex.” says Aditya.

Contrary to popular belief, we’re not meant to live at the mercy of our feelings. The prefrontal cortex - the rational part of our brain - evolved to help us think clearly and act purposefully. Extreme emotionality is often mistaken for intensity or authenticity, but that’s not what makes us human. What does is our ability to pause, reflect, and choose a helpful response.

5. Almost all problems are interpersonal

“Most people come to therapy because someone in their life doesn’t”, says Alpana.

The psychologist Alfred Adler once said, “All problems are interpersonal relationship problems.” And he wasn’t wrong. Whether it’s anxiety, self-esteem issues, or anger - the root is often tangled in our relationships. Our early dynamics and current triggers are mostly rooted in our relationships. Therapy works best when focused on that space - between you and the people in your life.

4. You can be loved and still hate yourself

“Stop making your hatred for yourself your partner’s job”, says Alpana.

Don’t expect your partner to carry what you haven’t unpacked. That’s not intimacy. That’s dependence. It’s unfair to expect a partner to constantly affirm or rescue you from your own insecurities. While relationships can be supportive, they’re not a substitute for personal healing. Therapy teaches you how to make your relationships about sharing each other’s lives - not saving each other’s lives.

3. Hypocrisy is also a skill

“Hypocrisy is the secret to mental health, because it helps you not take yourself too seriously”, says Aditya.

More often than not, we get stuck playing a character. As Albert Ellis used to quip: When someone asks me “How can I do this? …be this? …say this?”, I calmly say “easily!”.

We are allowed to change our opinions, actions and behaviour if that can help us without harming others. The resistance we feel in doing that is our brain being lazy, not wanting to work and therefore sticking to patterns. A large part of working on yourself is about contradicting yourself whenever it is helpful, and changing again when it stops being helpful.

2. Rest and fun also need planning

“Surprises are great. But, plans working out, is also not bad”, says Aditya.

One of the biggest missing life skills is resting and enjoying. In fact, most people don’t realise these are skills. We always want rest and fun to be spontaneous and sufficient - we want it to “happen to us”, but we should really try to “make it happen”. We want sleep to come automatically and be restful, and we expect friends to automatically come to our house party. Like with other necessary activities in life, we shouldn’t depend on luck for rest and fun, instead make them a part of our to-do list. Planning doesn’t make rest any less restful or joy any less joyful, instead it makes us better at both those activities.

1. Who is a good therapist?

“A good therapist is one who becomes increasingly unnecessary for you with session” says Aditya.

Therapy is not dependence. Any therapist worth their salt is always focused on how to make their clients independent and skilled in dealing with the problems in their future. It is natural be a little dependent on your therapist in the beginning, but with time, a good therapist will ensure they become useless in your life. Which is why therapy needs to be about getting better instead of just feeling better - otherwise it's as good as a coping mechanism for stress, like gossip.

BONUS: Life can also be easy

Alpana and Aditya’s mentors, Shishir Palsapure, Rohan Pande, and Yogita Chhablani used an analogy during their training which has stuck with them:

“We all know that we have a marathon to run. Now, you can either get on the track and run, or you can get on the track, carry a 10-kg bag on your back and then start running", Aditya recounts.

That 10-kg bag is filled with irrational beliefs, outdated coping patterns and unhelpful emotions. Most of us are not broken - we’re just burdened.

“Unburdening that 10-kg bag, that’s what we do as therapists”, says Alpana.

Alpana Awasthi started her career in psychology in her 40s - an age when most people start planning their retirement - while being a stay-at-home mother of two children. In 2019, she founded The Thought Clinic https://www.adityaawasthi.com/the-thought-clinic.

She is certified by the Albert Ellis Institute, New York and Beck Institute, Philadelphia. She is an expert in REBT, CBT, DBT, ACT and LGBTQIA+ affirmative Counselling. She inspired her son, Aditya, to get certified in CBT and REBT to help with his consulting, trainings and coaching. Together, they have been working on mental health with individuals, as well as organisations, government and defence departments, and non-profits around the globe.