PVLF 2026

Mental Health in a Complex World: Kapil Gupta on Awareness, Resilience, and Change

Mental health isn't a silo; it's a structural driver of economy, conflict, and climate crisis. Build psychological capital to face life's emergencies.
on Oct 10, 2025

Frontlist: In My Head unravels the complex, multi-linear dimensions of mental health—linking it with economy, climate crisis, conflict, and conformity. What made you feel it was urgent to approach mental health at this global, interconnected scale?

Kapil: Because mental health is not a clinical silo—it’s the invisible thread running through everything we touch as a society. When the economy tanks, it’s not just because of fiscal mismanagement, it’s because leaders under stress make reckless calls. The climate crisis isn’t only a scientific or political failure, it’s a human failure to handle fear, denial, and greed. Conflict, conformity, cancel culture—all these are psychological conditions at scale. We’ve been pretending mental health is an individual problem when in reality it shapes our collective destiny. For me, the urgency was to break that illusion. If we don’t recognize stress and mental health as structural drivers, we’ll keep fixing symptoms while the core disease festers.

Frontlist: Your book highlights often overlooked challenges—particularly in older adults and neurodevelopmental conditions like adult ADHD. Why do you think these groups remain invisible in mainstream mental health conversations?

Kapil: Because society has a selective attention span. We glorify issues that are easy to dramatize—teen anxiety, young people burning out, workplace stress. They trend well, they’re “relatable.” But the quiet suffering of an older adult losing their sense of identity, or a middle-aged professional finally realizing their lifelong “disorganization” was actually ADHD—those don’t fit neat narratives. Ageism plays a huge role; once someone stops being seen as “productive,” we push them out of sight. And adult ADHD is inconvenient because it forces organizations and families to admit their assumptions about laziness or incompetence were wrong. These groups are invisible not because they’re rare, but because they don’t feed society’s appetite for easy stories.

Frontlist: The idea of “psychological capital” is central to In My Head. Can you share what it means in practical terms for someone navigating stress, sadness, or loneliness in daily life?

Kapil: Think of psychological capital as the balance in your mental bank account. Every healthy habit, honest conversation, moment of reflection is a deposit. Every toxic coping mechanism, avoidance, or denial is a withdrawal.If your account is robust, you can handle life’s curveballs without collapsing. If it’s running on empty, even the smallest challenge feels catastrophic. In practice, it means being deliberate about what you consume—your thoughts, your relationships, your routines. It means knowing that resilience isn’t something you summon in a crisis; it’s something you build daily. When sadness or loneliness hit, your psychological capital determines whether you spiral or recover.

Frontlist: You write about the healing power of words and the benefits of early intervention. How can families, schools, and workplaces practically embed these principles to create environments of care rather than crisis response?

Kapil: By dropping the tokenism. A poster saying “It’s okay to not be okay” doesn’t change anything if the moment someone opens up, they’re judged or penalized. Families need to normalize difficult conversations at home, not brush them under the carpet. Schools need to stop rewarding only compliance and start creating space where vulnerability and curiosity are respected. Workplaces should evaluate leaders not just by revenue but by how psychologically safe their teams feel. Early intervention is not dramatic—it’s ordinary conversations happening consistently. Words heal when they are repeated, trusted, and backed by action. It’s not awareness campaigns we need; it’s cultures of honesty.

Frontlist: Depression and anxiety alone cost the global economy over a trillion dollars each year. Do you think framing mental health in economic terms helps push policymakers and businesses toward serious action, or does it risk reducing a deeply human issue to numbers?

Kapil: It’s both a necessary lever and a dangerous simplification. Policymakers don’t move until you wave big numbers in front of them, so yes, the trillion-dollar cost grabs attention. But if we stop there, we end up treating people as data points—optimizing productivity instead of addressing pain. Stress isn’t just an economic burden, it’s a father drinking himself numb, a teenager feeling invisible, a professional burning out quietly. So while the numbers help force the door open, the conversation must quickly pivot back to humanity. Because economies exist to serve people—not the other way around.

Frontlist: The book introduces the “Solh Way” and the guiding “5 Adjectives” for mental wellness. What inspired this framework, and how do you see it as different from the usual self-help or therapy-based models?

Kapil: The 5 adjectives come directly from the 16-hour theory—our daily truth that everything we do in those waking hours is an attempt to optimize our mental health. Consciously or unconsciously, we are trying to increase happiness and peace of mind, while decreasing sadness, loneliness, and stress. That’s it. Strip away the jargon, and mental wellness is that simple. Unlike most self-help models that hand you a checklist or therapy models that center around experts, this framework is rooted in agency. It’s not about outsourcing your wellbeing to a professional or a book—it’s about learning to track, measure, and own your stress in everyday decisions. The 5 adjectives are not commandments; they are markers of direction.

Frontlist: If you could spark one shift in how India—and the world—thinks about mental health on this World Mental Health Day, what would it be?

Kapil: This year’s theme is “Access to Services – Mental Health in Catastrophes and Emergencies.” And let’s be honest: the biggest emergency of our times is addiction. It’s the catastrophe lurking in every home, in every workplace, in every corner store. Addiction to alcohol, substances, screens, even stress itself—it’s eroding societies quietly, until one day it explodes. If I could spark one shift, it would be this: treat addiction not as a personal failing but as the public health emergency it truly is. Because unless we address addiction now, we’re staring at a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.

Frontlist: You describe yourself as a “parallel entrepreneur” who thrives on building organizations with meaning. How did that entrepreneurial lens shape the way you approached writing about something as intimate and universal as mental health?

Kapil: Parallel entrepreneurship isn’t about chasing shiny objects—it’s about building companies that feed into each other, that exist in sync. If there was no OMLogic—the digital agency—there would be no Solh. The infrastructure, the digital-first thinking, the marketing muscle, all of that was the bedrock. Same with Frontlist and other ventures—they’re not separate planets, they’re an ecosystem. That lens shaped In My Head too. I didn’t write it as a stand-alone essay on feelings. I wrote it as part of a system of change—deeply personal, yes, but structured to connect dots between business, policy, technology, and human truth.

Frontlist: You are known for your candid, no-BS style of communication—even running “Truth Shots with Kapil.” Did that unfiltered style carry into the book, especially when tackling stigmatized or sensitive topics like suicide or trauma?

Kapil: Completely. When you talk about suicide, addiction, trauma—sugarcoating is dangerous. You don’t tell someone teetering on the edge to “cheer up.” You meet them where they are, with unvarnished honesty. In the book, I refused to wrap pain in polite words. Some readers found it uncomfortable, and that’s exactly the point. Discomfort forces reflection. And reflection is the first step toward healing. For me, writing In My Head was about being unfiltered enough to cut through stigma. Because comfort zones don’t save lives—truth does.

Frontlist: What role do you think technology—AI, digital communities, platforms like Solh—will play in democratizing access to mental health and stress management in the next decade?

Kapil: Technology is the only way we scale care to billions. Humans alone can’t do it. AI can measure stress in real time—like what we’re experimenting with through Streffie—and digital communities can bring belonging to those who have none in their physical lives. Addiction recovery programs like Prarambh Life show how tech can hold space for those who feel too isolated to seek help otherwise. But let’s not make the mistake of idolizing tech. It’s not the healer—it’s the amplifier. The healing remains human. For me personally, I promised 10 years of my life to mental health. We are in year five now. The foundation is laid—the next five are about proving that stress management, powered by both tech and humanity, can actually alter the trajectory of this crisis..