Vijay Nagaswami

marriage can give us a lot more.

In India, marriage, a term including committed live-in relationships, is not the same it used to be. It’s a much more live, dynamic and much-discussed entity. We have many more expectations of each other and of our marriages. And a good thing too. For marriage can give us a lot more than we think, if we configure it right. And the irony is that it’s not too difficult to do this. But it does require us to think of marriage differently. Not as a sacrament, but as a relationship. Not as an instrument of bondage, but as one of bonding. Not as a space where we discharge our duties, but as one where we enrich ourselves and enhance our personal growth.

Dr Vijay Nagaswami, Psychiatrist, Relationships Consultant and Author , knows a thing or two about the subject, having worked with a few thousand couples over almost thirty five years in Couple Therapy and Individual Psychotherapy, having authored five books on various aspects of marriage, having written articles in major national and international publications including a column for The Hindu called The Shrinking Universe and having conducted seminars, workshops and training programmes in different parts of the country. If you would like to understand the New Indian Marriage better or would like to work smarter on your marriage, then you’ve come to the right place.

Couple Therapy.

There are as many approaches to Couple Therapy as there are couples, but the one that works best is the one that helps couples understand the dynamics that are operating without their knowledge in their relationship and helps them reconfigure it in a manner that both can get the best out of each other, instead of pushing each others’ wrong buttons, which most of us are very good at. Couples who look to enhance their relationships get much more out of Couple Therapy than those who are looking only to fix a specific problem.

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Books.

The New Indian Marriage Series published by Westland Books is a set of four books covering diverse aspects of marriage - laying the foundations, returning intimacy to marriage, surviving infidelity, and, if all else fails, working towards an amicable divorce. Written in a very readable and informal style peppered with case stories, the books don’t provide neat solutions but are written with the intention of making the reader think, understand and make rational choices

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Shrinking
Universe

Between 2008 and 2013, the Shrinking Universe appeared as a fortnightly column in the Sunday magazine of The Hindu and explored many facets of mental health including relationships, parenting, adolescent experiences and other psycho-social aspects of contemporary urban Indian life. The column enjoyed a wide and dedicated readership, and as one reader said, ‘…gives the whole family a lot to talk about over breakfast on Sundays’. You can read the entire archives here.

Consult.

Individuals and couples who would like to consult Dr Nagaswami can do so either face-to-face or by video-conference. Without doubt, face to face sessions are more enriching, but these may not always be possible, in which case a video-chat may be a useful alternative. Unfortunately email and telephone consultations are not offered.

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