[3][5] He was the son of George Carstairs (died 1948), a Church of Scotland missionary, and his wife Elizabeth Huntley Young.
[3] He represented Scotland at the 1937 International University Games, winning a silver medal in the 5000 metres in a time of 15:24.2.
He also represented Scotland at the 1939 International University Games, winning a gold medal in the 5000 metres in a time of 15:20.2.
[7] He represented Great Britain at the 1938 European Athletics Championships, coming sixth in the Men's 5000 metres with a time of 14:51.3.
[3] Following graduation, he worked in general medicine as an assistant physician at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital for a year.
[12] In 1949, Carstairs joined the India Field Project organised by Gitel P. Steed for Columbia University.
It was run in three Indian villages, referred to by disguised names: Carstairs was almost exclusively concerned with "Deoli" in Rajasthan, where he lived for six months in 1950, and was visited there over the summer by Steed.
[13] His residence, after his marriage in December 1950 to Vera Hunt, in Sujarupa, and later visits to India, are noted in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
[12] He wrote on Hinduism, his views being influenced by Melanie Klein and second-generation Freudianism, an approach also adopted by Philip Spratt.
[17] In 1960, he was appointed head of a new Medical Research Council unit based at University College London.
[1] In 1978, he left academia and devoted his time to advising the World Health Organization on developing psychiatric services in India, with emphasis on making them appropriate to Asian needs.
[2] He had plans to expand the university both physically and in the number of subjects it taught, but because of the hostile atmosphere he faced these were not achieved during his vice-chancellorship.