About Dr. Megha Deuskar

Dr. Megha Deuskar is a psychologist, academician and author based in Pune, India. She serves as Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Fergusson College (Autonomous), Pune — one of India's oldest and most distinguished autonomous institutions — where she has been a faculty member since 2006. Over a career spanning more than two decades, she has built a body of work that bridges the rigour of contemporary clinical psychology with the depth of Indian psychological tradition.

Academic Formation

Dr. Deuskar completed her Master of Arts with Clinical Psychology as her specialisation from Savitribai Phule Pune University, in 2001. Awarded a research scholarship by the University Grants Commission, she completed her doctoral studies at Savitribai Phule Pune University in 2006. Her thesis — Stress Reduction through Yoga Nidra — examined the clinical efficacy of this centuries-old Indian relaxation practice using the standards and methodologies of modern psychological research.

Prior to her doctoral work she had completed her training as a Yoga teacher from the Yoga University, Nasik. She also completed her training in counseling in 2003 and has been practicing counseling ever since.

Teaching and Academic Leadership

At Fergusson College, Dr. Deuskar teaches Personality, Psychopathology, Psychodiagnostics, Psychotherapies, Human Cognition and Emotion, and Foundations of Clinical Psychology at the postgraduate level. She coordinates the institution's one-year Postgraduate Certificate Course in Counselling Psychology, serves as Member Secretary of the Institutional Ethics Committee, and has been a registered Ph.D. guide at SPPU since 2015. She is a member of the Board of Studies at MIT University of Vedic Sciences, Loni, Ruia College, Mumbai, D. Y. Patil College, Pimpri, Abeda Inamdar College, Pune and DES Pune University, Pune.

Over the two decades of teaching at Fergusson College, Dr. Deuskar has developed affiliations with several institutes in the field of mental health, Connecting NGO, Muktangan De-addiction Centre, Rising India Research Foundation, Kalpana Vyavahare Foundation, Mind Brain Solutions, Pune, and Hirabai Cowasjee Jehangir Research Institute, Pune to name a few.

Research

Dr. Deuskar has published over 40 papers in national and international peer-reviewed journals and has presented at conferences across India, the United Kingdom, the United States, Serbia, Malaysia and Australia. Her research spans counselling psychology, Indian psychology, women's mental health, parenting, chronic illness, and the psychology of religion and wellbeing. She has contributed to the Indian adaptation of Personality Psychology by Larsen and Buss.