Photo above: Umme Kawser’s scholarship and clinical practice in couple and family therapy span culturally responsive interventions and emotionally focused therapy.
From Bangladesh to Minnesota: Family Social Science PhD student integrates research and clinical insights from both cultures
My journey into couple and family therapy began in Bangladesh, where I worked as a psychologist, educator, trainer, and community practitioner. Early in my career, my training focused on understanding children, adolescents, and adults through an individual psychological lens. However, in my clinical work, I repeatedly observed that individual distress is deeply intertwined with family relationships, couple dynamics, cultural expectations, social pressures, and intergenerational patterns.
These clinical insights gradually steered me toward systemic thinking. Before coming to the University of Minnesota, I served as a faculty member in the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology at the University of Dhaka. In this role, I taught graduate courses, supervised master’s-level research and internships, facilitated clinical skill development, and contributed to curriculum design. Cultivating these professional spaces taught me that meaningful growth requires more than theoretical knowledge; it demands rigorous self-reflection, deliberate practice, ethical vigilance, and the confidence to navigate complex, real-world contexts.
Building something new
A major turning point in my career came in 2018, when I joined an initiative to establish systemic family therapy training in Bangladesh. Collaborating with international systemic therapists and local mental health professionals, we successfully launched the country’s first dedicated family therapy training clinic. Serving across multiple roles—as a trainee, co-trainer, lead therapist, organizer, and eventually as a supervisor and program developer, I learned firsthand what it takes to build infrastructure from the ground up in a high-need, low-resource environment. The clinic also reinforced a vital truth: family therapy cannot simply be imported from one culture to another. In Bangladesh, family life is profoundly shaped by interdependence, hierarchy, religious traditions, extended family involvement, economic pressures, and collective social expectations. These realities dictate how couples communicate, how parents make decisions, how conflict is conceptualized, and how individuals seek help. Operating within this ecosystem instilled in me a deep commitment to culturally responsive practice therapy that is rigorously evidence-informed yet flexible enough to honor local meanings, values, and relational structures.
Upon completing her doctorate, she aims to advance relational mental health research, elevate clinical training standards, and expand culturally responsive services.
Learning across contexts
Joining the doctoral program in couple and family therapy in the Department of Family Social Science allowed me to deepen this work systematically. Here, I have seamlessly integrated my clinical background with research, teaching, and supervision. Through advanced clinical training, studying systemic and relational theories, and working directly with couples and families, I have anchored my scholarly pursuits in the real-world needs I observed in Bangladesh and the broader global mental health landscape.
A particularly meaningful dimension of my doctoral training has been navigating multiple, intersecting identities. I am simultaneously a clinician, researcher, educator, learner, and Bangladeshi scholar training in the United States. Holding these positions has pushed me to think critically about power, culture, language, equity, and the ethical responsibility of translating clinical knowledge across distinct global contexts.
Research with clinical purpose
My current research portfolio focuses on couple relationships, divorce decision-making, systemic family therapy, culturally adapted interventions, and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). I am especially interested in how clinicians identify and respond to relational distress, shame, attachment injuries, and repair processes within couples. Receiving a doctoral dissertation grant from the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICEEFT), founded by Dr. Sue Johnson, has been an incredible honor. It strongly affirms the value of studying couple therapy processes in ways that meaningfully enrich clinical practice and contribute to the growing empirical base of EFT.
Teaching has further crystallized my professional identity. At the University of Minnesota, I taught an undergraduate course exploring human development in families across the lifespan. Students routinely brought their diverse lived experiences and cultural backgrounds into our dialogues on development, caregiving, aging, and family transitions. Teaching served as a constant reminder that family science is universally relevant because our lives are fundamentally shaped by our connections to others.
Supervision has emerged as another cornerstone of my professional development. Whether mentoring students in Bangladesh or providing live clinical supervision to marriage and family therapy graduate students in the U.S., I view supervision as a sacred space where theory, ethics, culture, and clinical judgment converge. Sitting alongside developing clinicians keeps me grounded, reminding me that clinical confidence is forged through observation, feedback, humility, and deliberate practice.
Carrying the work forward
As I approach the completion of my doctorate, my aspiration is to continue building durable bridges between research and practice, and between the United States and Bangladesh. My objective is not a unidirectional transfer of knowledge. Rather, I envision a reciprocal exchange where global perspectives enrich the broader field of couple and family therapy, and culturally grounded research directly informs local clinical care.
Ultimately, I want my work to empower couples, parents, and children who have historically lacked access to specialized relational mental health services. I am equally dedicated to training and mentoring the next generation of therapists who will carry this vital work forward in Bangladesh and other underserved regions. Looking back at my trajectory, the overarching thread remains unchanged: a steadfast commitment to understanding human suffering and fostering resilience within the context of relationships. In couple and family therapy, I have found my professional home.
Umme Kawser is a doctoral candidate in the couple and family therapy program within the Department of Family Social Science.