What therapy is, in her words
Therapy is like having an aerial view of your life. From the floor, the noise looks endless — the tantrum, the silence, the school report, the slammed door. From above, you start to see the shape of it: how thoughts, feelings, beliefs, past conditioning and the family environment quietly arrange themselves into a pattern.
The work is releasing the old pattern, and learning a new way of responding to life.
It’s a playful process. There are games. There’s laughter. There are drawings, music, baking, cooking, stories. It rarely looks like the therapy you’ve seen in films — and that’s the point.
Healing through play is not just play — it is a doorway to a child’s world. Therapeutic play is purposeful.
Why this work
“I started this work in 2009 because I kept meeting children who didn’t have a single adult listening to them. Schools were calling them difficult. Families were calling them impossible. Stapoo started as the room where their feelings were expressed, validated and transformed.”
— Prachi
How Prachi works
She starts on the floor.
Not in a chair, not behind a desk. At your child’s pace.
She listens before she names anything.
Diagnoses come later, sometimes never. The first ten sessions are usually about catharsis — releasing what the child has been carrying. As the story of their life unfolds, positive changes appear in parallel.
She works with the parents too.
Always. Not as an add-on. Because the child returns home every evening to the same conditions that shaped them in the first place.
She is honest about what she cannot do.
If a child needs psychiatric medication, she will say so. If a child would benefit more from someone else, she will give you the reference. Stapoo is a small practice on purpose.
A drawing one of her clients made of her
“This is what I look like to a 9-year-old. It’s the only review I take seriously.”
— PrachiQualifications & training
- M.A. Clinical Psychology — Jamia Millia Islamia University, 2008
- B.A. Psychology — Daulat Ram College, Delhi University, 2006
- P.G. Diploma in Child & Adolescent Guidance & Counselling — NIPCCD, New Delhi
- Cognitive Hypnotic Psychotherapy — Institute of Clinical Hypnosis & Related Sciences (ICHARS)
- Trained in Arts-Based Therapies — WCCL Foundation, Pune, 2017
Workshop topics delivered
Creating compassionate classrooms · How to talk to children about safe & unsafe touch · Non-violent communication in class & homes · Supporting neurodivergent students · Emotional regulation for teens.
By the numbers
Outside the room
When she’s not in session, Prachi reads, journals, and writes stories for children. She works out at the gym, swims, and drinks coffee with dark chocolate. She travels in nature — where she meets new people and makes friends with dogs.
