People with Purpose: Raji Samprathi
From Storytelling to Whole-Person Healing: Raji Samprathi’s Holistic Mission for Mental Health and Wellbeing
How one Canberra woman moved from lived experience education to integrative care, transforming her own journey into a pathway for others.
During Mental Health Awareness Week (12–17 May), we reflect on how mental health is not just a conversation, it’s a commitment. A commitment to breaking silence, to building safer spaces, and to shifting how we understand wellbeing in all its complexity. In Canberra, few embody this transformation more clearly than Raji Samprathi.
We first met Raji as a passionate volunteer with Mental Illness Education ACT (MIEACT). Today, she is the founder and practitioner behind Holistic Remedies, a growing health and wellness service grounded in naturopathy, counselling, and lifestyle medicine. Her journey is not just about career progression, it’s about aligning purpose with practice, and bringing full-circle healing to her community.
Starting with Story: A Foundation in Lived Experience
Raji’s entry into the mental health sector was not as a clinician, but as a storyteller.
As a volunteer with MIEACT, Canberra’s leading lived-experience-led mental health education organisation, she was part of a powerful network of individuals who share personal experiences of mental illness and recovery in structured, evidence-informed presentations. These sessions are delivered across schools, workplaces, and community groups, aiming to reduce stigma, spark empathy, and increase early help-seeking.
For Raji, participating in this model offered a powerful outlet. It allowed her to transform her own journey into something that could create change, especially for others who, like her, may have once struggled to speak up or be heard.
This volunteer work wasn’t simply a stepping stone. It helped shape Raji’s understanding of how complex, personal, and deeply human mental health really is and how traditional models of care often miss the bigger picture.
A Growing Awareness: Mental Health Is More Than the Mind
Through years of listening, speaking, and learning, Raji saw a consistent pattern: many people living with mental distress were not being treated as whole people. Instead, they were often navigating fragmented services, seeing a GP for sleep, a psychologist for stress, and perhaps a dietitian or specialist for physical symptoms, but with little cohesion between them.
Raji also observed cultural barriers that prevented people, especially those from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, from seeking support in the first place. These communities often experience stigma differently. They may face language barriers, family or gender expectations, and systems that are not attuned to their experiences.
This insight, alongside her own lived experience, fuelled her decision to pursue formal qualifications. She trained as a naturopath, became a certified practising counsellor, and specialised in lifestyle medicine, giving her the tools to offer truly integrated care.
The result is Holistic Remedies, a Canberra-based health and wellness service with a simple but profound mission: support the whole person, not just the problem.
Introducing Holistic Remedies: Where Science Meets Compassion
Holistic Remedies was founded on the belief that optimal health requires a blend of physical, emotional, and mental alignment. It is not a one-size-fits-all model, but a person-centred, science-informed practice grounded in compassion.
Raji’s service offerings include:
1. Counselling
Raji provides a calm, non-judgmental space for people to explore mental and emotional challenges. Her training draws on evidence-based frameworks such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and she works with clients navigating anxiety, stress, grief, burnout, and life transitions.
Importantly, her counselling approach is culturally sensitive. As a woman of colour and first-generation migrant, Raji understands the layered identities and expectations that shape mental health in multicultural families. This is especially valuable in Canberra’s diverse community.
2. Naturopathy
Naturopathy focuses on the body’s ability to heal itself when given the right conditions. Raji uses natural therapies—like herbal medicine, nutritional guidance, and lifestyle changes, to support people dealing with common chronic conditions, including diabetes, gut health, hormonal imbalances, and low immunity.
Far from being an alternative to medicine, Raji sees naturopathy as a complement—part of a broader toolkit to promote energy, balance, and prevention. Her method is grounded in science, yet delivered with a personal touch often missing in conventional settings.
3. Lifestyle Medicine
This emerging field is based on the six pillars of lifestyle medicine: nutrition, movement, sleep, stress reduction, social connection, and avoidance of risky substances. Raji applies these pillars holistically, tailoring programs for clients who want to make sustainable changes to their daily habits.
Many of her clients seek support after receiving a chronic illness diagnosis, recovering from burnout, or simply wanting to feel like themselves again. Raji’s approach helps them understand the root causes of illness, not just manage symptoms.
Social Enterprise With Heart
Holistic Remedies isn’t just a business, it’s a social enterprise, meaning its purpose extends beyond profit. Raji reinvests part of her earnings into community education and access initiatives. She offers flexible pricing, including sliding-scale services and online consultations, and is working toward increasing outreach to under-served populations.
She operates across multiple Canberra locations, including Gungahlin, Coombs, and Cook and provides online services for rural and remote clients. This hybrid model ensures that people can access support in ways that work for them.
Connecting Lived Experience With Professional Expertise
What makes Raji’s work stand out is how seamlessly she blends personal insight with professional knowledge.
She doesn’t position herself as someone with all the answers. Instead, she invites clients into a partnership. Her clinical work is grounded in empathy, not in a vague or abstract way, but in the quiet, grounded knowing that comes from someone who has been there. Her past role as a volunteer with MIEACT reflects this ethos: that storytelling, when done ethically and safely, can be a powerful form of healing, for both the listener and the speaker.
Today, Raji no longer shares her personal story publicly in the same way, but the lessons of that time continue to inform her practice. Every intake form, consultation, and check-in is guided by a simple principle: people deserve to be understood in full.
Why This Matters: Lessons for Mental Health Week and Beyond
Raji’s journey; from lived experience advocate to holistic practitioner, shows us what’s possible when we listen to the full human story behind someone’s health.
It reminds us that:
Mental health is not separate from physical health.
Healing happens faster in safe, culturally aware spaces.
We need systems that treat the person, not just the diagnosis.
During Mental Health Awareness Week, we’re often reminded to “check in” on each other. But what if we also checked in on the systems, services, and stories that shape how we experience health? What if we made room for models that integrate science, culture, and compassion?
Practitioners like Raji are already doing that work—and showing us what modern, inclusive healthcare could look like.
You can explore services or book an appointment via www.holisticremedies.com.au. Raji works with individuals, families, and workplaces looking to embed sustainable wellbeing practices in daily life.
You can also follow her wellness tips and resources on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/raji-samprathi
People for Purpose is a storytelling series by Purpose Media CBR, highlighting individuals who are creating positive change in Canberra through lived experience, innovation, and purpose-led action. To nominate someone or share your story, get in touch via hello@purposemedia.com.au.
