Ramani Durvasula

Ramani Suryakantham Durvasula is an American clinical psychologist, retired professor of psychology, media expert, and author.

She has appeared on media outlets discussing narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic abuse, including Red Table Talk, Bravo, the Lifetime Movie Network, National Geographic, and the History Channel, as well as programs such as the TODAY show and Good Morning America.

Ramani Suryakantham Durvasula was born in Englewood, New Jersey.

In 1989, Durvasula obtained a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Connecticut.

She has also received a Master of Arts in Psychology and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Clinical Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1997.

Durvasula has a private practice in Santa Monica and another in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles.

She is also Professor of Psychology at California State University, Los Angeles, and a visiting professor of psychology at the University of Johannesburg.

Her books include “Don’t You Know Who I Am”: How to Stay Sane in the Era of Narcissism, Entitlement and Incivility, Should I Stay or Should I Go: Surviving a Relationship With a Narcissist, and You Are WHY You Eat: Change Your Food Attitude, Change Your Life, as well as peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers.

Durvasula first appeared on television on an episode of Remote Control.

She was the co-host of the show My Shopping Addiction on the Oxygen network, and has provided commentary on the TODAY show and Good Morning America.

Channels such as Bravo, the Lifetime Movie Network, National Geographic, the History Channel, Discovery Science, and Investigation Discovery have also featured her.

In 2003, Durvasula received the “Emerging Scholar” Award from the American Association of University Women and the “Distinguished Woman” Award from the CSULA.

In the Fall of 2010, she appeared in the Bravo series “Thintervention,” where she led group therapy sessions to help six participants find out the source of their overeating.

She is co-host of the podcast Sexual Disorientation.

She has been interviewed on internet media platforms as well, notably MedCircle and TONE Network.

She has spoken at TEDx Sedona and South by Southwest.

California State University named her Outstanding Professor of the year in 2012.

Durvasula lives in Los Angeles.

After a divorce she raised her two daughters.

She is in a relationship with Richard Wearn.

At the American Psychological Association, she was on the Committee on Socioeconomic Status from 2014 to 2017 (serving as president in 2016), and is a member of the advisory board of the Minority Fellowship Program.

The National Institutes of Health has funded her research on personality disorders; they approved a $1.5 million grant for her to study the link between HIV and mental illness.

The four-year study, that included 288 patients, determined that 92 percent of participants had experienced depression, substance use disorder, or another Axis-I disorder, and that nearly half met criteria for at least one Axis-II disorder (e.g. antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, or narcissistic personality disorder).