The Gurū-Chelā Relationship Revisited: The Contemporary Relevance of the Work of Indian Psychiatrist Jaswant Singh Neki

Abstract

The aims of this appreciation of the life and work of Jaswant Singh Neki (1925–2015), a leading Indian psychiatrist and Sikh scholar, are: (1) to revisit Neki's contributions to social psychiatry through his employment of the Indian paradigm of the gurū-chelā relationship; (2) to contrast and compare Neki's gurū-chelā paradigm for psychotherapy with the Western “I-centred paradigm” of psychotherapy; and (3) to examine the impact of Neki's gurū-chelā paradigm in India and the Indian diaspora and to synthesize it with contemporary trends in psychotherapy in Western societies.