Culturally Informed Counselling in Queen’s Park, Westminster
Our Intercultural Therapeutic Lens at Shifaa
At Shifaa Healing Hearts Counselling, we work through an intercultural therapeutic lens. This means our therapists actively consider a person’s cultural background, identity, values, beliefs, and lived experiences throughout the therapeutic process. Instead of assuming one universal way of understanding distress, we explore how culture, family, migration, language, faith, community, and wider social context shape a person’s emotional world.
We recognise that people bring their whole selves into the therapy room — and so our work focuses on the whole person, not just the symptoms.
Co-Creation and Cultural Humility
Our approach is grounded in co-creation, meaning therapy is shaped collaboratively between therapist and client. We do not position ourselves as experts in someone else’s culture. Instead, we practise cultural humility — staying curious, open, reflective, and willing to learn. We ask rather than assume. We adapt therapy to honour the client’s worldview, family story, and cultural meaning-making.
We also recognise that clients and therapists may come from different backgrounds. Rather than seeing this as a barrier, we use these differences thoughtfully to deepen understanding, build trust, and strengthen the therapeutic relationship.
A Space That Welcomes Diversity
Shifaa is committed to an approach that is collaborative, non-pathologising, and anti-oppressive. We support clients to explore who they are without blame or shame. We acknowledge the realities faced by Global Majority and migrant communities, including experiences of racism, class challenges, gender expectations, stigma, and systemic barriers.
In essence, our work invites every part of a person’s identity into the room — their culture, their language, their story, their faith, their grief, their hopes, and their belonging.
The Theoretical Foundations of Our Intercultural Lens
Our approach is grounded in multiple therapeutic theories, each helping us understand people within their cultural, social, and relational contexts.
Person-Centred Therapy (Carl Rogers)
We believe everyone has an inner capacity for growth. Empathy, acceptance, and non-judgment are essential, especially when working across cultures where feeling misunderstood is common.
Attachment Theory (Bowlby, Ainsworth)
We explore how early relationships, cultural expectations, and family dynamics shape how people connect, trust, and cope in adulthood.
Object Relations & Relational Psychoanalysis (Winnicott, Klein, Benjamin)
These approaches help us understand how past and present relationships live inside us. Interculturally, we also consider migration, racism, faith, identity, family roles, and community structures.
Community & Systemic Perspectives
Distress is not only personal — it is shaped by community pressures, intergenerational trauma, poverty, discrimination, and cultural norms around shame, honour, duty, and resilience.
Intersectionality (Crenshaw; developed clinically by Turner, Khan, Awaad)
We recognise how multiple identities — such as race, gender, class, faith, migration status, and language — overlap and influence emotional wellbeing, safety, and power dynamics.
Narrative Approaches (Clandinin, Connelly, White)
We value clients’ stories in their own words. We understand that culture, family history, and faith deeply shape how people make meaning of their experiences.
Embodied & Somatic Approaches (Ogden, van der Kolk)
We pay attention to how trauma and emotion live in the body. Cultural norms influence how people express or suppress feelings, how the body holds stress, and how safety is restored.
A Holistic, Community-Informed Way of Working
Our intercultural approach helps us explore the different layers of a person’s experience:
- the person (their identity, emotions, strengths)
- their relationships (past and present)
- their story (how they make meaning)
- their body (how trauma and emotion are held)
- their family and community
- their cultural and social world
Healing does not happen in isolation. It happens through connection, understanding, and the freedom to bring all parts of yourself into the space.
At Shifaa, we are committed to walking alongside each person with respect, compassion, and cultural humility — offering therapy that truly reflects the diversity and richness of the communities we serve.