Kumlaish Kumari

A have over 20 years of experiences working with individuals, couples, families and groups, from a diverse background.  If your feeling misunderstood, confused, alone and feel caught up in the complexity of managing your life experiences from several cultural standpoints then I may be able to help you. You may be experiencing trauma, or difficulties based around your own religious beliefs and feel conflicted with you family due to differences. I have specialist knowledge and experiences helping clients navigating such problems.  My background and experience during my training, has made me acutely aware of some of the limitations of traditional counselling skills and theory. Particularly, in relation to working with clients from minority ethnic communities who may not understand the concept of counselling and the role of the counsellor. I actively seek to develop my personal practice so that I can work effectively across cultural differences. This has meant developing my linguistic vocabulary to translate conceptual tools within the particular cultural context of the client, whilst respecting and acknowledging the spiritual and cultural worldview of the client. As a member of a minority ethnic community, I feel that it is essential for me to develop the ability to step in and out of both cultural worldviews, my own and that of the majority culture in order to fully empathically engage with my clients.

Since qualifying as a Counsellor, I have actively sought out opportunities to further develop my counselling skills and widen my experience of working with different client groups. I am qualified as a Critical Incident Debriefer, Neurolinguistic Programming Trainer, Hypnotherapist and hold a diploma in Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing (EMDR). I work with Employment Assistance Programmes and Local Authorities Occupational Health departments. Alongside my private practice, I provide Clinical Supervision to a number of Counsellors, both individual and in groups. I am a registered Member of BACP and work within the BACP ethical framework.