About Rehnuma.
MBACP Integrative Psychotherapist and doctoral candidate offering psychotherapy in Islington and online.
The things we bring to therapy can be hard to admit to ourselves, let alone talk to someone about.
This is why working with someone qualified and trained appropriately is important to know you’re in safe hands. I’m a fully qualified BACP Registered Psychotherapist working in Islington and online within the BACP Ethical Framework. I’m also a candidate in the British Psychological Society (BPS) accredited doctoral training in Counselling Psychology at the University of Roehampton, meaning I also abide by BPS standards. Read on to learn more about my training and experience.
My clinical experience
I have six years of clinical experience across NHS and private settings, working with adults, older adults, and young people. In the NHS I have worked in Talking Therapies (IAPT), community mental health teams and specialist mental health rehabilitation services, gaining experience across a wide range of presentations including complex trauma and childhood sexual abuse, severe mood and anxiety difficulties, psychosis, and complex relational and emotional needs. My current private practice focuses on longer term depth-oriented work with adults experiencing chronic emptiness, disconnection, loss of meaning, and relational difficulties.
My training has followed the scientist-practitioner model, meaning that I am trained to work therapeutically while thinking about and referring to the research literature and evidence base around how your struggles affect you. What this means for you is that I'm drawing on more than just my own intuition and experience when we are working together and am usually also drawing on the current wider research literature.
Evidence-based therapy in Islington and online that isn’t manualised CBT.
Teaching and consulting
I have taught and led seminars in psychology and psychotherapy at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, bringing clinical practice into academic settings and contributing to the training of the next generation of practitioners.
Alongside this, I am one of a small number of clinical stakeholders involved in developing the world's first benchmark to assess the therapeutic safety of AI. This work, conducted in conjunction with the University of Roehampton and Kivira and funded by the ESRC Digital Good Network, sits at a new frontier for therapy. As AI tools become increasingly present in mental health contexts, the question of what makes them clinically safe and therapeutically sound has never been more pressing.
BSc Psychology, Brunel University. Three year foundation in human psychology covering biological, cognitive, developmental and social psychology as well as personality psychology.
MSc Clinical Associate in Psychology, University College London (UCL). An 18-month clinical psychology training to work with complex adult mental health difficulties in NHS community services, covering Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and third-wave behavioural models like Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS).
MSc Counselling Psychology, University of Roehampton. Therapeutic and research training covering humanistic therapies including person-centred, existential and Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT).
PsychD Doctorate in Counselling Psychology (pending 2027), University of Roehampton. This is an advanced, doctoral level therapeutic and research training covering humanistic, psychodynamic and CBT and third wave behavioural therapy models in order to practice as a Chartered Counselling Psychologist, a title which is legally protected in the UK, accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS) and regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
Training and qualifications
Other relevant certifications
Certificate in Therapeutic Skills, Metanoia Institute. Foundational therapeutic training in counselling skills.
Intensive Training Certificate in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), British Isles DBT. I hold a full certification in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, one of the most evidence-based approaches for working with emotional intensity, distress tolerance, and difficulties in relationships. This training informs how I work with clients who experience overwhelming emotions or find it difficult to regulate their inner world, even when acute risk is not the primary presenting concern.
Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination (ACE-III). Training to assess for cognitive impairment in adults and older adults.
BACP Certificate of Proficiency. Exam to confirm that I meet the standards of practice necessary to register with the BACP.
Full BPS member: Counselling Psychology division.
Enhanced DBS holder: Enabling me to work with both adults and young people.
Research activities
Chronic feelings of emptiness are one of the most commonly experienced but least understood phenomena in psychological life. My doctoral research is the first of its kind to explore what it actually feels like to live with persistent emptiness, moving beyond theoretical accounts and clinical observation to understand the lived experience directly.
People who feel chronically empty often describe a sense of profound disconnection from themselves, from other people, and from any stable sense of who they are. Some feel socially isolated even when surrounded by others or held within meaningful relationships. Others experience it as emotional numbness, a strange hollowness, or the persistent feeling that life is happening at a slight remove. For some this comes and goes, but for others it is the background of everything.
This experience and others connected to it sit at the heart of my therapeutic work. Understanding emptiness and related experiences from the inside out shapes how I work with clients who carry it, and allows me to offer something more than a generic therapeutic response to an experience that deserves precise and careful attention.
My research on feelings of emptiness
AI safety in therapy
As AI-assisted therapy tools become more widespread, the need for clinically grounded voices in that conversation is only growing. In collaboration with the University of Roehampton, I am involved in research into the clinical application and safety of AI in therapy contexts, contributing a practitioner perspective to questions that are currently being debated within the field.
The impact of shunning in religious groups
I am also a researcher on a large scale project investigating the psychological impact of shunning in religious communities. This work explores two distinct but connected experiences: the trauma of leaving a religion and being subjected to organised social exclusion by former community members, and the moral injury carried by those in religious leadership roles who have enacted shunning practices and now live with the psychological consequences of that.
People who have left high-control religious groups often describe experiences of religious trauma, profound loss of identity and belonging, social isolation, and a grief that is rarely recognised or validated outside specialist contexts. Those who have participated in shunning from a position of religious authority frequently carry a different but equally significant burden, moral injury, shame, and the complex aftermath of having caused harm they may not have freely chosen.
This research sits at the intersection of religious trauma, identity, belonging, moral injury, and psychological harm, and contributes to a growing evidence base for how therapy can better serve people navigating life after religion.
More information can be found about the study here: https://www.msrp.org.uk/
My training, experience and professional registration let you know I meet safe and ethical practice guidelines and the ability to form a relationship that allows for growth and healing.
But you need to know that this will be the right relationship for you. I invite you to contact me for a 20 minute conversation via Google Meet or phonecall to get a sense of whether working with me sounds right for you.