About Kashish Chugh
An ordinary girl trying to do something extraordinary.
Some people find their calling. I think mine found me.
I have always believed that you choose some professions but some professions choose you. This one chose me even before I had words for it. Before the training, before the practice, before any of this existed.
Everything I have built comes from one place. A genuine want to make people feel better, give them hope, and make sure they leave feeling seen.
That has never changed. Everything else has grown around it.
You already carry the light.
This is not a tagline. This is what I actually believe.
I have always believed that people have it in themselves. Think about a child before the world has had too much time with them. They are not born afraid. They are not born doubting themselves. None of that is original to them. Everything is learned.
Which means every single piece of it can be unlearned.
Here the light is not a metaphor. It is everything already present in you. The awareness, the capacity for connection, the ability to recognise patterns and choose differently. It does not disappear. It just gets buried. Under fear, under relationships that taught you to make yourself smaller, under years of being told who you were allowed to be.
Therefore, my work is not about giving people something they lack. It is about helping them find what was always there but forgotten.
My Story
How I got here.
I grew up curious about people. Not in an academic way. In the way where you find yourself watching someone across a room and wondering what they are really thinking, what they are really carrying, what would actually help them.
And that is why I founded Mentify Foundation (a not-for-profit organisation) at eighteen because I could see a gap and I could not look away from it. People around me were struggling and there was nowhere easy to turn. So I built a safe space for people to share their struggles about mental health. I did not wait until I felt ready because I doubt if we ever do!
Then followed was years of learning by doing Clinical internships across some of India's leading hospitals, Conducting workshops in schools, universities, offices. And that is how I had rooms full of people finally saying things out loud that they had never said before. Each experience taught me something the next one built on.
After that I moved to Melbourne and completed my Master of Counselling at Monash University. Now, I am registered as an ACA Level 2 Counsellor. The education gave me the language and the framework. The years before it gave me the conviction. From a founder to a therapist that conviction has never changed. Everything has only grown around it.
My Professional Journey
The path, in order.
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2021
Where it began
Founded Mentify Foundation at eighteen while pursuing undergraduation. Began clinical internships across India's leading hospitals across psychiatry, clinical psychology and counselling.
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2021 — 2023
Building something real
Grew Mentify Foundation into an active not-for-proft organisation with more than 500 people. Facilitated workshops and support groups across schools, universities, and institutions across India.
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2024 — 2025
A new country, deeper training
Relocated to Melbourne and completed a Master of Counselling at Monash University. Registered as an ACA Level 2 Counsellor. In February 2025, became the first Asian woman to be invited to document her student counselling journey through blogs on the ACA's official website.
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Now
In practice
Founded private practice. Therapy, Bloom Club, PAUSE Club, workshops, and retreats. Still building.
Qualifications & Registrations
The training behind the work.
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Education
- Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Psychology | University of Delhi | India
- Master of Counselling | Monash University, Melbourne | Australia
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Registration
- Australian Counselling Association | Level 2 Counsellor
- Working with Children Check | Victoria | Australia
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Specialist Training
- Gottman Method Couples Therapy Level 1 and Level 2 | The Gottman Institute
- Mental Health First Aid | Mental Health First Aid International
- Reiki Healing
- Graphology and Handwriting Analysis
- Tarot Reading
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Recognition
- First Asian woman invited to document her student counselling journey on the Australian Counselling Association's official website, 2025
- Founded Mentify Foundation at eighteen, growing it into an active mental health community supporting hundreds of people across India. Guest speaker at universities, NGOs, government research institutes and community organisations internationally.
The conviction came first. The training followed. Here is what that looks like on paper.
My Approach
How I work.
I bring structure to every session but hold it loosely. If something more important comes up, we go there. What I am always working toward is safety. Not comfort. Safety is the condition where someone stops performing and starts being honest. That is when real work begins. Most shifts happen in a single moment. A pattern that has been running quietly for years suddenly becomes visible. Once you can see it, you have a choice about it. That choice is what everything I do is built around. I draw on CBT, ACT, mindfulness, Gottman method, and trauma-informed practice. I also hold a deep respect for the spiritual dimension of human experience. In my work, science and soul inform each other.
Person-centred
You set the direction. I bring the structure. We go at the pace that feels right for you, not the pace a textbook suggests.
Pattern-focused
Most of what keeps people stuck is invisible to them. Making it visible is where the real work begins.
Trauma-informed
Safety comes before everything else. We never move faster than feels right, and we are always checking in.
Strengths-based
We do not only look at what hurts. We build on what is already working in you. You have more resources than you realise.
What makes this different.
Why Kashish
What makes this different.
There are many good counsellors in the world. What I offer is a specific combination that is genuinely hard to find elsewhere.
I trained clinically across two countries, in hospital settings and private practice, across disciplines that most practitioners never touch in a single career. I then built something from scratch, a practice, a community, a program, because I believed there was a better way to deliver support than the standard model offered.
I also bring something most clinically trained practitioners do not. A genuine, deeply held relationship with spirituality and intuitive practice. Not as a hobby. As a trained, considered dimension of how I understand people. When someone comes to me, they get both. The rigour of evidence-based practice and the wisdom of something older and harder to measure.
I have sat in rooms in India and in Australia. I understand what it means to carry the weight of family expectation, cultural identity, and the particular loneliness of being far from home. I do not need that explained to me.
And I am still building. Still learning. Still genuinely invested in this work in a way that a comfortable, established practice sometimes is not.
If you are looking for someone who will meet you with both professionalism and real humanity, that is what I am here to offer.
Ready to take the first step?
A free 20-minute call is where most things begin. No commitment, no payment. Just a conversation to see if we are the right fit.