Prachi Srivastava — and the children others gave up on.
Prachi is a child, teen and parent counsellor based in Noida, Delhi NCR. She has been practising since 2009 — 17+ years working with children whose behaviour confuses adults: angry kids, silent kids, rebellious teens, kids the school can’t reach, kids carrying grief their family can’t name. She uses play, arts, and cognitive-hypnotherapy approaches, and she works as much with parents as with children — because a child can’t heal alone in a room.
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 connects the adults around the child.
Prachi works as the connecting link between parents, child and teachers — so the child hears one consistent message at home and at school.
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 the children made of her
“This is what I look like to a 9-year-old. It’s the only review I take seriously.”
— Prachi
Qualifications & training
M.A. Clinical Psychology — Jamia Millia Islamia University, 2008
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
By the numbers
17+
Years of practice
Since 2009
2–25
Ages she works with
Children, teens & young adults
8
Schools worked with
Workshops & teacher training
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.
Some reviews arrive in writing. The best ones arrive like this.A bamboo veranda where Prachi sits when work is far away.
If something here sounded like your family — start here.
Free 15-minute call. No pitch. Prachi reviews every intake personally.
