Dr. M. Thomas Kishore

I am a proud recipient of the Reeta Peshhawaria Fellowship in 2014. It is very special for me because it is instituted in memory of my teacher, Late Dr Reeta Peshwarai, who inspired me among a few more teachers, to pursue clinical psychology career. She was a great teacher, astute clinician, and efficient mentor- in summary a great human being. I was granted the Fellowship to conducted an empirical study to develop a scale for early identification of autism spectrum disorders. Accordingly, I have developed a scale that is published in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry (see, doi: 10.4103/psychiatry.IndianJPsychiatry_49_18) I am trained a clinical psychologist, currently working as an Additional Professor in the Department of Clinical Psychology and a consultant clinical psychologist for infant, child and adolescent mental health services at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, India. I also provide early intervention services to promote mental health and optimum development in infants of mothers with psychiatric illnesses besides running a special clinic for early identification and intervention of developmental disorders.

I have received the ‘Child and Adolescent Mental Health Award’ of the Indian Association of Clinical Psychologists, the highest professional body of clinical psychologists in the country in 2014. I have worked I a team to develop clinical and practice guidelines on intellectual and developmental disorders for the Indian Psychiatry Society. I have served as a Special Editor of the Journal of Intellectual Disabilities, SAGE, UK which addressed the service delivery models in the low and middle-income countries.  I am also a member of its International Advisory Board (https://journals.sagepub.com/editorial-board/JLD). I am an editorial board member of the clinical psychology section of the Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine (https://journals.sagepub.com/editorial-board/SZJ). I am an independent reviewer for many reputed Journals in the field of child and adolescent mental health. I have been associated with several projects that looked into the developmental and mental health outcomes of infants in adverse psychosocial circumstances. Besides child and adolescent metal health, I have strong clinical and research interests in infant mental health, neurodevelopmental disorders, school mental health, and family coping with childhood mental health issues.