Teaching Note: Headsets in the clinic: can tech heal a stigmatised market?

In late 2025, Dr Nazim Ali Idrisi, founder of Delhi’s NeuroMind transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) Centre, faced a strategic pivot after bundling virtual reality (VR) therapy with TMS and ketamine in aggressive festival packages. Initial uptake surged among urban professionals seeking quick fixes for anxiety and phobias, but VR felt gimmicky, further clinicians worried about sidelining deeper counselling. As competitors like Wundrsight scaled remote VR subscriptions, Dr Nazim weighed doubling down on tech-led growth, retreating to human-centric roots or forging a hybrid model balancing scale, ethics and trust in India’s stigma-bound mental health market.

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