Abstract
In the summer of 2001 I was successful in applying for the post of Asian Trainee Counsellor with the Asian Women's Mental Health Project. This project had been set up by a mainstream counselling agency which provided counselling to women from disadvantaged backgrounds. One of the main functions of the post was to set up and develop a counselling service for women from the South Asian community in Bristol. The service would be the first of its kind to address the linguistic needs of the community by having a counsellor who would conduct counselling sessions in the three major Asian languages which are Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu; these and English or a combination of more than one language could also be used. It was important for the counsellor to possess a greater understanding and awareness of the cultural and religious backgrounds of the clients who were likely to access the service.