Dr. Pooja Lakshmin MD is a board certified psychiatrist and New York Times contributor specializing in women's mental health and a leading voice at the intersection of mental health and gender, focused on helping women and other marginalized communities escape the tyranny of faux self-care. She maintains an active private practice, where she treats women struggling with burnout, perfectionism, and disillusionment, as well as clinical conditions like depression and anxiety. Pooja's viral New York Times essays and Instagram posts have resonated with hundreds of thousands of women suffering from the betrayal of burnout.
In 2020, after noticing a gap in accessible science-based digital resources tailored to women’s emotional well-being, Pooja founded Gemma, a physician-led education platform dedicated exclusively to women’s mental health, impact, and equity. Gemma provides expert taught virtual courses to support women’s mental well-being and is building an innovative approach to online learning and women’s mental health.
Pooja is a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the George Washington University School of Medicine, where she is a clinical supervisor in the Five Trimesters perinatal psychiatry clinic. She serves as a medical advisor to Peloton, is a founding mother of the Chamber of Mothers and has spoken on parental and women's mental well-being for organizations like McKinsey, Memorial Sloan Kettering, 23andMe, alice and olivia, Hello Sunshine, The March of Dimes, The Girl Scouts of the USA, Thrive Global and others. Her advice has been featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America, The Drew Barrymore Show, NPR, and in Glamour, Marie Claire, Self, Shape, Harper’s Bazaar and other media outlets.
Pooja studied at the University of Pennsylvania where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude in Women's Studies and Biological Basis of Behavior. She received her MD from Jefferson Medical College. She did her internship and PGY2 year of psychiatry residency training at Stanford University, finishing her psychiatry residency training at George Washington University, where she was part of the Global Mental Health track. Pooja has a diverse research background in women's mental health including post-doctoral research training at Rutgers University where she worked on projects studying the neural basis of sexual response in women. Other research projects have included using qualitative methods to study women's perception of living with depression in India, and testimonial therapy in intimate partner violence survivors. She served as Associate Program Director for the psychiatry residency program at George Washington University from 2016-2018
Having gone down the rabbit hole of faux self-care and extreme wellness herself, her book Real Self-Care is Pooja's answer to the juice cleanses, the gratitude lists, and the bubble baths -- not only to care for ourselves for real but, in turn, to transform our broken culture.
She lives in Austin, Texas with her partner Justin, their son, and their two feisty cats.