An In-Depth Interview With Dr. Ronil Shah

In the world of psychiatry, where convention often rules, Dr. Ronil Shah stands out as different. With an openness to exploring diverse cultural and personal contexts, Dr. Shah believes that truly understanding mental health requires more than just clinical knowledge — it demands curiosity about the world.

Dr. Shah’s curiosity has shaped his career and personal life. A lover of learning, he pursues wide-ranging interests like street photography, short story writing, and architecture. This multifaceted perspective allows him to relate to his patients on a deeply personal level, finding common ground in ways that enhance comfort and trust.

Connection is central to Dr. Shah’s work. “The more that I learn in those fields and aspects, it directly translates to my work such that I can make a connection with people and talk to them and help them feel more comfortable. Having someone that can understand a vast variety of backgrounds and different cultural contexts I think is really important,” he explains.

Forging patient connections

Dr. Shah traces his passion for exploring other cultures back to childhood, and particularly the influence of his father who instilled the value of life experience over material possession. “I was very fortunate in that my dad had a similar mentality,” he says. “He worked hard and made sure to provide for us, and my brother and I had very nice lives. But he also chose having time versus pursuing more money.”

Dr. Shah’s upbringing in an Indian-American household within a predominantly Caucasian, conservative and religious community in the suburbs of Dallas taught him early on to be a “chameleon” and fit in no matter where he is or who he’s with.

“I grew up as this brown kid in Texas with a microcosm of South Asian, East Asian and Southeast Asian kids, whose parents are immigrants and have been born there or came over at a young age,” he recalls. “I learned very early how to code shift and the different cultural contexts and perspectives people can be operating from; how that affects their life outlook, their choices in career and their hobbies.”

Such early experiences equipped him with the skills to connect with individuals from various backgrounds — skills he now uses every day. Often, Dr. Shah sees his patients going from reserved in appointments to being much more engaged through simply finding a common touch point. “Even if it’s briefly just speaking another language or mentioning that I've spent a little bit of time in a country where they’ve been or have some background in,” he says. “It can be as simple as, ‘I’ve done jiujutsu too!’”

One example that particularly stands out to Dr. Shah was an experience with a patient from India. “She thought I was an average second-generation Indian-American kid who couldn’t speak Hindi,” he recalls. “And then I made this very particular cultural reference in Hindi, and her demeanor changed immediately.”

Digging a little deeper

Given Dr. Shah’s curiosity to explore different contexts beyond what is offered up to him, it is perhaps unsurprising that he has a profound appreciation for the importance of a holistic treatment approach.

He explains how a lot of people hope to come into a session, talk about what's been going on with them, and then start on a medication that has a significant effect on their lives that can be perceived as: ‘Before I was on meds and after I was on meds.’

“I've had a number of patients who have been like that, and as you can imagine, they've been very appreciative about how this one medication can now occasion such a great change in their life,” he says. “For the majority of people, the medications may have some effect, or it’s a little unclear, but a lot of it is reapproaching how you view your life and process things.”

It’s an approach that he adopted during residency at the University of Colorado, after being inspired to pursue a psychotherapy track by a particularly impactful lecture from a psychoanalyst. “He was breaking things down and not just approaching stuff from this raw biological perspective of neurotransmitters,” he says. “It made a lot of sense to me, because biological etiologies can't really cover everything. And it further highlighted the contextual basis of mental illness and mental pathology.”

To emphasize his point, Dr. Shah gives the hypothetical example of a patient who describes many of the symptoms of major depressive disorder.

“I think it is possible to just follow the algorithm in your mind of, ‘Oh, they’ve surpassed some threshold, this fulfills this diagnosis, that means I'm going to prescribe this medication,’ and that's the extent of the interaction,” he says. “I think the therapy perspective has really helped me pause that automatic algorithm from just deploying itself and be like, ‘OK, this sounds like this, but let's just dig a little bit more and see what's going on.’”

Dr. Shah explains that by taking a moment and digging a little further, he has often recognized that patients’ symptoms were masking as one thing but were actually quite another.

“There have been many times that at the beginning of the conversation I feel like something is going to be fairly straightforward, but then you start digging a little bit and it's actually a trauma-related etiology versus ‘plain old depression,’” he says. “So I think taking the time and being able to think about things from that perspective really results in me being able to provide what is most helpful to the patient.”

Blended approach to therapy

When Dr. Shah conducts therapy sessions, he sees a lot of his role as being education-based. He explains that while a lot of patients may have the conception that therapy is talking with a “one-directional friend,” he believes it is important to go further to really address the underlying issues.

“Instead of just being a receiving container for their grief, their woes, it’s helping them to recognize patterns in those woes,” he says. “Helping them make connections with the woes of today versus the woes of two weeks or two decades ago — and sort of changing perspective on their own problems.”

He is the first to acknowledge that this approach can be uncomfortable for patients, but says that this unease can also be an important indication of progress. “Often, you can touch a nerve and anger the patient, or precipitate a very strong emotional reaction, whatever that may be — sadness, anger, positivity,” he says. “I think that level of being connected and providing that challenge, that is when progress happens.”

Dr. Shah tends to blend together different therapy approaches rather than sticking to a single form. “The boundaries between them are pretty loose,” he says. “Perhaps you have one patient where the majority of what I'm doing is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy-focused, but then there are elements of Dialectical Behavior Therapy that drip in, or Psychodynamic Therapy, or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. And then others where that balance is shifted in a different direction.”

He also explains that the type of therapy with a single patient can shift over time. “The pie chart of therapies starts rearranging itself as I learn and the patient learns and decides for themselves which one of these they're finding more helpful,” he says.

Adapting to patients’ needs

Dr. Shah approaches every individual as a unique case and does his utmost to adapt to each person’s needs.

In some instances, that means answering a lot of technical or conceptual questions. “I'm always happy to dig into that with folks; it’s just dependent on what level of interest and openness it seems that the patient wants themselves,” he says. “I have a ‘curiosity killed the cat’ level of curiosity, so I always have questions about things, and I'm happy to field those from patients.”

For others, he says the emotions of what they're going through is already overwhelming enough. “You have to go off the read you get from each person,” he says. “Some people are looking for more of a firm didactic hand that's just like, ‘You're the doctor — tell me what to do; I'll do it; I'll get better.’ So then I put on the white coat and take that directive role.”

Dr. Shah also explains that some patients have a more guarded approach toward interacting with the healthcare system and would often rather do research on their own. “For those folks, I lay out all of the information, even sending patients a ‘reading list’ of various papers and studies,” he says.

Ultimately, for Dr. Shah, it comes down to establishing a personal connection with each patient, to whatever degree he can. Whether that means finding common ground through shared interests, acknowledging cultural nuances, or simply listening with genuine curiosity, his goal is to ensure patients feel seen and understood.

“Many people benefit from seeing a provider they can connect with,” he says. “Because then it’s, ‘OK, this doctor actually has insight into what I'm going through, what I'm interested in, and what my life is like.’” For Dr. Shah, then, connection is not just a method but a cornerstone of his practice — one that fosters trust, collaboration, and meaningful progress.

---

This blog post is brought to you by Apraku Psychiatry.

Apraku Psychiatry is a private practice offering video appointments with Board-certified psychiatrists licensed in multiple states. To schedule an appointment with Dr. Ronil Shah, patients can complete the online booking form below.