ABOUT

Dr. Baiju Gopal is a Professor at the Department of Psychology, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore, India. He has 20 years of teaching and research experience in psychology.    Dr.Gopal was also the Project Director of the 21st century US-Indo Knowledge initiative award in Partnership between Miami University, Ohio, USA, and Christ University, Karnataka, India. He completed his Ph.D. from the University of Calicut, Kerala, on the concept of madness and its management: The Kerala Scenario. He is a Member of the American Psychological Association (APA).  Dr. Gopal is also an affiliate of the Indian psychoanalytical society Kolkata affiliated to the international psychoanalytical Association London.
His areas of interest lie in qualitative research methodology, cultural psychology, and psychoanalysis. He has publications in national, international journals and books. He also presented papers at national and international conferences. He has travelled overseas and given guest lectures at the University of Toronto, Canada, and Miami University, Ohio Oxford, USA. He was also one of the keynote speakers of the conference on integrating south Asian Healing Traditions into Counselling, Psychology, and psychotherapy held at the University of Toronto Canada in 2017. He also presented papers at the ABCT conference in Atlanta,  USA, in 2019. Dr Gopal was invited for a webinar on culture and mental health in December 2020 at the University of Leipzig, Germany. He was also presented a paper on Divinity and Healing in the Tradition of Shamanic Practices in South India at Roehampton University,London ,UK.Dr. Gopal also trained scholars,  students, and faculty on different topics at multiple institutes across the country like IIM Kolkata, IIT,Delhi ,TISS Mumbai, Ambedkar University, Delhi   Population studies Mumbai, SPJIMR Mumbai, Institute of public enterprises Hyderabad, Karnavati University, Ahmedabad , AMITY university ,Kolkata ,St Xavier’s,Kolkata ,  Christ University Bangalore, Karnataka open university, Mysore, Kerala University, CUSAT Kochi, Calicut University, etc. He is also one of the trainers of Numerical Analytics, Delhi, the distributor of NVivo software in India. He also regularly conducts webinars on Qualitative data analysis using NVivo12.
Dr.Gopal was involved in research activities that have national and international emphasis. He is the principal investigator of the project titled ‘A training model for culturally competent and evidence-based mental health care in diverse societies’ in collaboration with Miami University, USA. He was a Principal investigator of a major research project on religious conversion and identity transformation: Narratives of conversion experiences funded by Christ University, Bengaluru. He was also the Co-investigator of a major research project (UGC sponsored) on psycho-social analysis of indigenous healing practices for mental illness in Karnataka. Dr. Gopal is also involved in supervising research at Undergraduate, Postgraduate, MPhil, Doctoral, and Post-doctoral levels. He has rich experience in organizing workshops, seminars at national and international levels which initiated different dialogues in psychology and related discipline. Especially his effort to bring qualitative research methodology, psychoanalytic thinking, and cultural psychology perspectives in south India needs special mention.
Apart from the academic interest, Dr. Gopal also believes in the artistic expression of self. He is a trained playback theatre actor and part of a theatre group called ‘The Actors Collective’ Bangalore. He is part of the core team of actors and regularly performs in different shows. He performed more than 100 stages which include the prestigious TEDx performances organized by MSRIT and CMR Bangalore in 2017.He also a documentary film maker. He directed documentary titled Spells possession and madness (2019) and The Gods from the Inferno (2022). His documentary The gods from the inferno being awarded the ‘The honorary jury  mention ‘ at the 13th Dada Saheb Phalke film festival 2023. Dr Gopal is also published popular articles on various platforms. He is a traveller, farmer, and passionate cook.