Why The Village
Mental health is a lonely profession, and good referrals are surprisingly hard to make. The people we serve often heal best with a village around them: two or three professionals in one care team, each bringing a different concern, methodology, and lens. Yet matching someone to the right professional — on values, temperament, style, cultural context, location, and an instinct — depends on knowing each other well. Most of us simply do not. Nor does any 'find a therapist' algorithm.
The Village exists to change that: a curated, moderated community where therapists of Indian origin actually come to know one another, so the referrals, the case conversations, and the support all flow from real connection.
What you get
Opt in for any given week and we will arrange a 30-minute one-on-one with another member. Share a preference with the moderator, or leave it open and meet someone new.
Talk through anonymized or hypothetical cases with people who understand the work.
Give and receive referrals you can actually stand behind, from professionals you have come to know.
What is new in the field, in India and abroad, without the noise.
From The Village community and beyond.
How it is organized
The Village lives on WhatsApp, a moderated community organised into focused groups, so conversation stays relevant and easy to follow.
Who it is for
Practicing mental health professionals of Indian origin, anywhere in the world:
How membership works
The Village is free to join, and joining is by invitation or referral. Every member is personally vetted before being welcomed in. That is what keeps the community trusted, active, and genuinely useful: you are in a room of professionals who have each been met and known, not an open directory.
The Origin Story
I am Prairna Kumar. I have spent fifteen years across healthcare and technology in the US and India, most recently as Founder & CEO of Unhush AI, an AI operating system for mental health therapists that gave 220 therapists over 1 million minutes of their time back in a year.
But the reason I am building The Village is older than any of that.
In 2020, I was living in the US and I went looking for a therapist of Indian origin who would understand the context I was carrying. I had no idea where to start. A friend I asked — under cover of "asking for a friend" — suggested vitamins and a walk. My doctor declined to refer me and noted in my file that I had "refused" care. I found someone good in the end, in India, entirely by chance. She was wonderful. But I had no real way of knowing that beforehand. I just got lucky.
I assumed the problem had been solved since, so many platforms, so much technology, so much awareness. But, while building Unhush, person after person reached out to me in confidence, asking the same quiet question: do you know a good therapist?
I had met more than 500 by then, sat in deeper conversation with over 100, and spoken with as many people seeking care. The pattern never broke. Stigma and affordability are not the barriers they once were. Trust is. And trust does not come from a directory of a hundred profiles you are too exhausted to read. It comes from human connection, right from the start.
That is what The Village is for.
I approach The Village from three directions: as a builder, as someone who has sat in deep conversation with the people who give care, and as a person who once needed it and could not find it. And that is the reason we keep quality, privacy and confidentiality at the core of our community.
I also write and run poetry as mental health advocacy at @piecesbypk on Instagram. Healing is as human as it is clinical, and the right words, like the right person, can change everything.
Reducing barriers to quality mental healthcare, one block at a time.