JEDDAH, 11 May 2008 — Although counseling and psychotherapy are useful in treating emotional disorders, and for strengthening and improving the relationships of families, Saudis are still skeptical about seeing a counselor or a psychiatrist.

“I’d never go to a family therapist or a marriage counselor, never,” said a 31-year-old separated Saudi man. “If my wife wants to try it out, I don’t mind and I might even encourage her. But personally, I’ll never go.”

A year and half ago, Nisreen Bukhari established Guidelines, a center specializing in family therapy and marriage counseling. “We need guidelines when things are on the rocks and people are unsure how to fix them. I also offer self-development courses, and workshops for women and teenagers. My main concern is women. I believe women have the power to turn their lives upside down if they use the right methods,” said Bukhari.

Guidelines offers counseling sessions to make women comfortable with themselves and know exactly what they want, and provide them with ways to handle dysfunctional relationships.

“Professional counseling is still a new concept in Saudi Arabia. People are still skeptical about it. The number of the center’s female clients have increased over the past year and half,” said Bukhari.

“However, women still lack the awareness and understanding that the cornerstone of every society is the family. This is when society becomes turbulent; the support of trained practitioners could help improve the situation,” she said.

When Bukhari meets her clients during her first session of counseling, she listens and studies their problems. Bukhari is an accredited Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) and Timeline Therapy master practitioner; it is these techniques that she uses to get her patients to release their negative feelings of anger, fear, guilt and pain.

NLP is an alternative approach to psychotherapy. Timeline Therapy is an integration of NLP and hypnotic regression used to release negative emotions through unconscious learning rather than traditional regression.

Shahad, a 21-year-old human recourses student at the College of Business Administration, was going through a phase of stress and needed help. After hearing about Bukhari, she decided to pay Guidelines a visit.

“I was going through so much stress for different reasons. I heard about Bukhari from relatives and took an appointment to meet her. She used timeline therapy to help me get rid of accumulated emotions that were stressing me out,” said Shahad. “I felt so much better and I even advised four of my relatives to visit the center.”

Bukhari began advertising in the local press to encourage women to visit the center. After one month, young men began to make prank calls. “Very few women take the initiative to come for counseling. It’s going to take sometime for people to understand that it’s perfectly normal to visit a counselor for help and advice,” she added.

Bukhari said that many women prefer to discuss their issues in private even though the problems they face are common ones. She stated that Saudi society is a closed one and that women guard their privacy very well, even during therapy.

In addition to counseling, the center offers activities for women. In May, Bukhari is organizing a three-day workshop to support divorced women. The course is SR1,500 per person. There is also a self-esteem camp for teenagers on May 11-12 costing SR1,250.

“Women need to get rid of post divorce negative feelings, and learn how to identify and change behaviors and thoughts that adversely affect their life. They need to find better ways to cope and solve their problems and learn how to set goals for their life,” said Bukhari.