Dr. Kanika Malik

Dr. Kanika Malik is an educator, mental health researcher, and clinical psychologist. She completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Delhi University, followed by pre-doctoral (M.Phil) and doctoral degrees at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS) and the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) respectively.

As an educator, Dr. Malik has taught undergraduate honours students of psychology and related disciplines. In her role as a mental health researcher, she has worked on various clinical and community mental health projects, focusing on adolescent mental health, youth mental health, substance use disorders, and training non-specialist providers. Furthermore, Dr. Malik has extensive clinical experience and is a trained and licensed clinical psychologist registered with the Rehabilitation Council of India and the Indian Association of Clinical Psychologists.

Dr. Malik has received grants from various national and international organizations, including Swasti Health Catalyst, India (as PI), the Wellcome Trust, UK (as PI), and the Wellcome Trust (2023), UK (as Co-I). These grants have supported her research efforts in examining and implementing effective interventions for mental health issues among adolescents and youth in low-resource settings.

Dr. Kanika has acquired skills in clinical interviewing, case history taking, psychological assessments, and cognitive behavioural interventions through her 10 years of work in outpatient and inpatient settings of various tertiary care hospitals, private clinics, and community setups.

Dr. Malik’s doctoral work was the first scientific exploration of female alcoholism in low- and middle-income countries and has been cited by various international and national scientists. After completing her Ph.D., she assumed a leadership role in implementing and evaluating a large-scale stepped care mental health counseling program for school-going adolescents in India. The project’s findings have been published in several high-impact journals and featured in leading print media.

In 2020, Dr. Malik received her first grant as a Principal Investigator (PI) from the Wellcome Trust. The grant supported a rapid systematic review aimed at identifying active intervention ingredients. During the same year, she also received a grant from Swasti Health Catalyst, a non-profit organization, to train and supervise a team of non-specialist counselors and psychologists in scaling up the stepped care counseling program for schools in Bangalore, India. Both projects have been successfully completed.

Recently, Dr. Malik and her team were awarded the Wellcome Trust’s ‘Mental Health Award: Looking Backwards, Moving Forward’ grant for a project titled ‘Mechanistic Trial of Problem Solving and Behavioral Activation for Youth Depression (METROPOLIS)’. The project, led by Dr. Daniel Michelson from King’s College London (KCL), U.K., in collaboration with members from O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU), India; Sangath, India (a non-profit); and Youth for Mental Health, India (a non-profit), is a four-year research project scheduled to commence in July 2023.

As a mental health practitioner-researcher, Dr. Malik has always been driven by curiosity to understand the complex interplay of bio-psycho-social determinants of mental health and a passion for providing innovative, accessible, and evidence-based interventions for underprivileged communities. She has dedicated a significant portion of her early career to working towards these goals and intends to continue advancing in this direction during her tenure at JGU.

Dr. Malik has taught the following undergraduate courses at JGU: Counselling Psychology (Theory) and Counselling Psychology (Practicum) in the Fall 2022 & 23 semester, Educational Psychology (Theory) and Educational Psychology (Practicum) in the Spring 2021 semester, Cognitive Psychology in the Fall 2021 semester, and Problem-Solving Counselling (elective) in the Fall 2023 semester. Previously, she served as a lecturer for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Nursing, Psychiatry, and Clinical Psychology at NIMHANS. With over eight years of experience, she specializes in training and mentoring clinical psychology trainees and non-specialist counsellors in case history taking, psychological assessments, and therapies, with a particular focus on cognitive and behavioral approaches.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

1. Malik, K., Shetty, T., Mathur, S., Jose, J. E., Mathews, R., Sahay, M., Chauhan, P., Nair, P., Patel, V., & Michelson, D. (2023). Feasibility and Acceptability of a Remote Stepped Care Mental Health Programme for Adolescents during the COVID-19 Pandemic in India. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(3), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20031722
2. Becker, K.D., Guan, K., Malik K., Gellatly, R., Nair, P., Patel, V., & Chorpita, B.F. (2022). Proof-of-Concept Evaluation of the Reaching Families Engagement System for Youth Mental Health Workers in India. Journal of Health Science and Education, 6(4), 226.
3. Gellatly, R., Knudsen, K., Boustani, M. M., Michelson, D., Malik, K., Mathur, S., Nair, P., Patel, V., & Chorpita, B. F. (2022). A qualitative analysis of collaborative efforts to build a school-based intervention for multiple common adolescent mental health difficulties in India. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1038259
4. Malik, K., Parikh, R., Sahu, R., Sudhir, P., Fairburn, C. G., Patel, V., & Michelson, D. (2022). “If there is a tension about something, I can solve it”: A qualitative investigation of change processes in a trial of brief problem-solving interventions for common adolescent mental health problems in India. Psychology and psychotherapy, 10.1111/papt.12433. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/papt.12433
5. Malik, K., Ibrahim, M., Mathur, S., Jose, J. E., Nair, P., Sahu, R., Krishna, M., Jangra, D., Mathews, R., Cuijpers, P., Chorpita, B., Fairburn, C. G., Patel, V., & Michelson, D. (2022). Development of a transdiagnostic stepped care programme for common adolescent mental health problems in Indian secondary schools: lessons from a pilot study examining acceptability and feasibility. Global Mental Health, 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1017/GMH.2022.7
6. Knudsen, K. S., Becker, K. D., Guan, K., Gellatly, R., Patel, V. H., Malik, K., Boustani, M. M., Mathur, S., & Chorpita, B. F. (2021). A pilot study to evaluate feasibility and acceptability of training mental health workers in India to select case‐specific intervention procedures within a dynamic modular treatment designed for a low‐resource setting . Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, April, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.13623

7. Malik, K., Ibrahim, M., Bernstein, A., Venkatesh, R. K., Rai, T., Chorpita, B., & Patel, V. (2021). Behavioral Activation as an ‘active ingredient’ of interventions addressing depression and anxiety among young people: a systematic review and evidence synthesis. BMC Psychology, 9(1), 150. https://doi.org/10.1186/S40359-021- 00655-X
8. Malik, K., Michelson, D., Doyle, A. M., Weiss, H. A., Greco, G., Sahu, R., J., J. E., Mathur, S., Sudhir, P., King, M., Cuijpers, P., Chorpita, B., Fairburn, C. G., & Patel, V. (2021). Effectiveness and costs associated with a lay counselor–delivered, brief problem-solving mental health intervention for adolescents in urban, low-income schools in India: 12-month outcomes of a randomized controlled trial. PLOS Medicine, 18(9), e1003778. https://doi.org/10.1371/JOURNAL.PMED.1003778
9. Parikh, R., Hoogendoorn, A., Michelson, D., Ruwaard, J., Sharma, R., Bhat, B., Malik, K., Sahu, R., Cuijpers, P., & Patel, V. (2021). Increasing demand for school counselling through a lay counsellor-delivered classroom sensitisation intervention: A stepped-wedge cluster randomised controlled trial in New Delhi, India. BMJ Global Health, 6(6), e003902. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003902
10. Krause, K. R., Chung, S., Adewuya, A. O., Albano, A. M., Babins-Wagner, R., Birkinshaw, L., Brann, P., Creswell, C., Delaney, K., Falissard, B., Forrest, C. B., Hudson, J. L., Ishikawa, S. ichi, Khatwani, M., Kieling, C., Krause, J., Malik, K., Martínez, V., Mughal, F., … Wolpert, M. (2021). International consensus on a standard set of outcome measures for child and youth anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The Lancet Psychiatry, 8(1), 76–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(20)30356-4
11. Chorpita, B. F., Daleiden, E. L., Malik, K., Gellatly, R., Boustani, M. M., Michelson, D., Knudsen, K., Mathur, S., & Patel, V. H. (2020). Design process and protocol description for a multi-problem mental health intervention within a stepped care approach for adolescents in India. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 133, 103698. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2020.103698
12. Michelson, D., Malik, K., Parikh, R., Weiss, H. A., Doyle, A. M., Bhat, B., Sahu, R., Chilhate, B., Mathur, S., Krishna, M., Sharma, R., Sudhir, P., King, M., Cuijpers, P., Chorpita, B., Fairburn, C. G., & Patel, V. (2020). Effectiveness of a brief lay counsellor-delivered, problem-solving intervention for adolescent mental health problems in urban, low-income schools in India: A randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-4642(20)30173-5
13. Boustani, M. M., Daleiden, E., Bernstein, A., Michelson, D., Gellatly, R., Malik, K., Patel, V., & Chorpita, B. (2020). Using relevance mapping methodology to design an adolescent mental health intervention in India. Global Health Action, 13(1), 1775062. https://doi.org/10.1080/16549716.2020.1775062
14. Parikh, R., Michelson, D., Malik, K., Shinde, S., Weiss, H. A., Hoogendoorn, A., … Patel, V. (2019). The effectiveness of a low-intensity problem-solving intervention for common adolescent mental health problems in New Delhi, India: protocol for a school-based, individually randomized controlled trial with an embedded stepped- wedge, cluster randomized controlled recruitment trial. Trials, 20(1), 568. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-019-3573-3
15. Michelson, D., Malik, K., Krishna, M., Sharma, R., Mathur, S., Bhat, B., … Patel, V. (2019). Development of a transdiagnostic, low-intensity, psychological intervention for common adolescent mental health problems in Indian secondary schools. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 130, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2019.103439
16. Roy, K., Shinde, S., Sarkar, B. K., Malik, K., Parikh, R., & Patel, V. (2019). India’s response to adolescent mental health: a policy review and stakeholder analysis. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-018-1647-2
17. Malik, K., Chand, P. K., Marimuthu, P., & Suman, L. N. (2018). Awareness and beliefs about alcohol use among women in India. International Journal of Culture and Mental Health, 11(3), 311–320. https://doi.org/10.1080/17542863.2017.1376105
18. Malik, K., Chand, P. K., Marimuthu, P., & Suman, L. N. (2017). Stressful and Traumatic Experiences among Women with Alcohol Use Disorders in India. Indian journal of psychological medicine, 39(5), 611–618. https://doi.org/10.4103/IJPSYM.IJPSYM_411_16
19. Malik, K., Chand, P., Marimuthu, P., and Suman, L. N. (2017). Addiction severity and comorbidity among women with alcohol use disorders: A hospital-based study from India. Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 28(Supplement C), 67-72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2017.03.028
20. Malik, K., Benegal, V., Murthy, P., Chand, P., Arun, K., and Suman, L. N. (2015). Clinical Audit of Women with Substance Use Disorders: Findings and Implications. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 37(2), 195–200. doi:10.4103/0253-7176.155620
21. Malik, K., Grover, N., and Kaloiya, G.S. (2015). Approach to Psychotherapy Case Formulation: A beginner Therapist’s Concerns- A Case Study. Indian Journal of Clinical Psychology, 42(1), 68-73.
22. Malik, K., and Grover, N. (2014). An Exploration of Trainees’ Perception of Clinical Psychology Training in India: A Qualitative Analysis. Psychological Studies, 59(3), 260-267. doi: 1007/s12646-014-0244-z

Paper Presentations

1. 2022: Presented research paper titled ‘Adolescent-focused Mental Health in India’ as part of Jindal Global University and Queens University Belfast joint seminar on school mental health
2. 2021: Presented review paper titled ‘Open Science: Making Research more Accessible to Communities’ at International Conference of Community Psychology, held at Haryana, India
3. 2021: Presented research paper titled ‘Assembling Evidence-based Practices for Low-resource Communities: Process & Lessons from an Adolescent-focused Mental Health Project in India’ as part of Jindal Global University and University of Leeds joint seminar on school mental health
4. 2019: Presented research paper titled ‘Addressing Refractory Adolescent Mental Health Problems: Formative Evaluation of a Transdiagnostic Modular Treatment in Indian Secondary Schools’ under the symposium entitled ‘Transdiagnostic, Stepped Care School Counselling System: The PRIDE Program in India’, in the53rd Annual Convention ABCT, 2019 held at Atlanta, United
5. 2017: Presented research paper titled ‘Temperament & Personality in Addiction: Empirical review’ under the symposium entitled ‘Temperament, Personality & Addiction: Risks and Intervention’, in the World Congress of Mental Health, 2017, held at Delhi, India
6. 2017: Presented research paper titled ‘Third Wave therapies in substance use disorders’ under the symposium entitled ‘CBT in substance abuse’, in the 41stInternational Conference on Cognitive Behavioural Interventions (ICCBI-2017), held at AIIMS, Delhi
7. 2016: Presented poster titled ‘Personal & Social Networks Among Women with Alcohol Use Disorders’ at XXII World Congress of the World Association of Social Psychiatry, held at New Delhi, India
8. 2016: Presented poster titled ‘Co-morbidity and Addiction Severity among Women with Alcohol Use Disorders’ at International Conference on Current Trends in Clinical Psychology, held at NIMHANS, Bangalore, India.
9. 2015: Presented research paper titled ‘Lifetime Trauma Experiences among Women with Alcohol Use Disorders’, in the 16th CCPI Conference, held in Bangalore, Karnataka, India
10. 2015: Presented research paper titled ‘Training and supervision variables among Clinical Psychology professionals in India’ under the symposium entitled ‘Research Findings on Therapist’s Variables among Clinical Psychology Professionals in India’, in the 41st National Annual Conference of Indian Association of Clinical Psychologist (NACIACP), held in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
11. 2014: Presented research paper titled ‘Women Substance Users in India: Findings and Implications of a Hospital based Audit’, in the 8th International Conference of SAARC Psychiatric Federation, held in Lumbini, Nepal
12. 2013: Presented research paper titled ‘Interpersonal Rejection & Substance Use among Women: 4 case reports’, in the International congress on Interpersonal Acceptance & Rejection, held in Chandigarh, India
13. 2012: Presented research paper titled ‘Cumulative Trauma and Self And Other Construction In Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivors: A Qualitative Study’, in the XXII Annual Convention of National Academy of Psychology, held in Bangalore, Karnataka, India
14. 2010: Presented research paper titled ‘Unthinkable World’, in the 37th National Annual Conference of the Indian Association of Clinical Psychologists, held in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

Workshop Presentations

1. 2021: Resource speaker in celebration of 106^th KLE society foundation day. Conducted an interactive webinar for teachers for district of Belgavi, Karnataka, India on Mental Health Concerns in Today’s Youth
2. 2018: Resource speaker in consultative workshop organized by UNICEF and WHO on the development of Helping Adolescent Thrive at Cape Town, South Africa
3. 2018: Resource speaker in consultative workshop on the development of a model for integrating mental health into adolescent HIV care in MRC/UVRI, Entebbe, Uganda
4. 2018: Resource speaker in workshop titled ‘It’s Ok To Talk: Youth Advocates Training’ in New Delhi, India
5. 2018: Resource speaker for a two-day teacher training program on providing mental health first Aid to school children, held at Sardar Patel Vidalaya, New Delhi, India
6. 2017-2018: Resource speaker in the Campaign against Drug Abuse organized by Department of Women and Child Development, Government of Delhi, India
7. 2017: Resource speaker in the plenary symposium on ‘Mental health and Adolescents’ in 11 World Congress on Adolescent Health, New Delhi, India
8. 2017: Resource speaker in workshop titled ‘Mental Health: It’s Ok to Talk!’ in 11 World Congress on Adolescent Health, New Delhi, India
9. 2015: Formal lectures and presentations for Psychologists working in De-addiction centers of Himachal Pradesh (deputed by Himachal Pradesh Government), who came to NIMHANS for their 1-month training program on ‘Psychological Care for Addictive Behavior’.
10. 2015: Resource speaker in a two-day workshop conducted by Department of Biostatics, NIMHANS, titled ‘Statistical Methods in Behavioral Research’
11. 2015: Resource speaker in the virtual module on ‘Substance Use in Special Population’ in NIMAHNS ECHO, an open knowledge network and clinical skills building initiative from NIMHANS
12. 2015: As resource speaker, held an interactive session on ‘Marital Counseling in Addiction’ in the workshop on Psychological Approaches to Addictive Behavior, conducted by Department of Clinical Psychology, NIMHANS