Dr Krystal-Jane Verasammy grew up in Santa Cruz, where strong community ties shaped her early sense of responsibility and care. She attended Sacred Heart Girls’ RC and later Holy Name Convent in Port-of-Spain. Even in secondary school, from as early as Form Six, she felt compelled to become a psychologist. While classmates pursued leadership roles such as captain and prefect, she trained as a peer counsellor through an NGO partnership with her school.
“It was my personality—people would come to share their problems and issues,” she recalls. Those early conversations confirmed her desire to work in mental health.
In Sixth Form, Verasammy studied Modern Studies, Sociology, Geography and Biology for CAPE, and her extracurricular activities reflected her instinct to care for others. She gravitated towards volunteer work and joined the Candy Stripers Club, which visited St Clair Medical. After school, she also visited the hospital and hospice, offering companionship to the sick and elderly. These experiences, she says, were pivotal—forming the foundation of her future and teaching her the importance of support, empathy, and connection, themes that would echo throughout her career.
Her path towards psychology was also shaped by personal experience. As a child and young adult, she witnessed her mother’s struggle with depression at a time when mental health was heavily stigmatised in Trinidad and Tobago.
“The only help available at the time was psychiatric care, and people who had issues like depression were labelled as crazy,” she says.
Access to care was extremely limited and often only available privately.
As the older of two children, Verasammy took on a protective role in coping with her mother’s mental illness, while her younger brother found comfort and escape in music. She remembers him as “a huge source of inspiration, very supportive and encouraging,” and despite their six-year age gap, the two remained deeply close.
In 2024, she experienced profound loss when he passed away—an event she describes as “heartbreaking.” It took nearly a year before she could begin to cope, and she relied heavily on therapy to process her grief.
After secondary school, Verasammy pursued a BSc in Psychology with a minor in Sociology at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine. She became active in the Psychology Students’ Association, and her academic performance earned her First Class Honours. Winning a Developmental Needs Scholarship allowed her to pursue a Master’s degree in Developmental Psychopathology in the United Kingdom, focusing on children and adolescents affected by developmental challenges, abuse, and neglect.
Upon returning home, she worked with the Ministry of Justice, supporting young offenders on probation and their families. She later joined the Ministry of Gender, Youth and Child Development. These roles exposed her to broader social issues affecting both young people and adults, eventually leading her to shift her focus primarily to adult mental health.
To deepen her training, Verasammy went to London to complete a doctorate in Counselling Psychology at Hampton University. Her training included intensive placements with diverse groups, including school-based counselling and bereavement support. In 2011, around the time she finished her Master’s degree, she met Glen Niles of the Down Syndrome Family Network in T&T and began volunteering with the organisation. By 2017, after completing her doctoral studies, she became a board member, contributing to advocacy and early intervention work.
When she returned home in 2017, she encountered a public health system with very few positions available for psychologists. She joined the Psychiatry Department at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, where she helped develop a high-stress relief clinic for both patients and hospital staff.
Her goal was to integrate psychological services into mainstream healthcare and support the training of future practitioners. She also supervised the final cohort of clinical psychology students before UWI’s programme was discontinued.
In 2019, she opened her private practice, Therapeutic Spaces Counselling and Psychotherapy. The name reflects her research on how physical environments influence therapeutic outcomes. Her practice departs from the traditional clinical model; instead, she uses a home-like setting with comfortable rooms, soft lighting and creative tools. She incorporates art, music, and narrative techniques, which are especially useful for adolescents who struggle to express themselves verbally.
Beyond her practice, Dr Verasammy serves as a Commissioner with the Equal Opportunity Commission. She continues her work with the Down Syndrome Family Network and advocates for national policies that support people with physical and mental disabilities. She strongly supports having trained psychologists in schools, similar to the UK model, noting that many children facing abuse or emotional challenges cannot access external services without the support of a trusted adult.
Despite her demanding career, she prioritises her own physical and emotional wellbeing—gym sessions, evening walks, time in nature and a grounding routine that keeps her connected to herself. Over the past year and a half, she has immersed herself in Latin and ballroom dance, where she met her partner.
She makes time for date nights, beach days, family, friends and regular check-ins with loved ones. And after her brother’s death, she committed to her own therapy journey—proof, she says, that even healers need healing, and that therapy is a lifelong resource, not merely a crisis response.
For Dr Krystal-Jane Verasammy, mental health is more than a profession—it is a personal mission shaped by experience, academic dedication and a deep belief in human resilience. She is honoured to serve Trinidad and Tobago in the ways she can, and continues to push for a future where compassionate psychological care is accessible to all.
With every client she supports, every policy she advocates for and every young life she encourages, she reshapes the national conversation around mental health—reminding us that real change begins with empathy, safe spaces and the courage to listen.
