Nafsiyat was established in 1983 by psychotherapist Jafar Kareem. Kareem saw that diverse religious, cultural and ethnic communities in London at the time were struggling to gain access to psychotherapy and counselling services, and that traditional psychotherapy was not adequately able to respond to the needs of different social identities.
These observations led Kareem to set up Nafsiyat, the first organisation in the UK to take account of the cultural background of both the patient and the therapist, and to recognise the importance of this in the therapeutic relationship.
Over the years, Nafsiyat has grown to offer the services of an increasingly wide range of paid and volunteer therapists from many different backgrounds, working across many different languages.
In the early 1990s we developed an intercultural therapy diploma, and then a Master of Science Degree in partnership with University College, London – staffed largely by Nafsiyat therapists. These programmes helped train some of the therapists currently working at our centre.
Today, we are proud to be able to offer our clients the services of a unique team of highly qualified and respected specialists.