Former teacher finds sweet spot in healing wounded souls

Hamida Ahmed a psychologist with a private practice. When Hamida Ahmed tendered her resignation from her teaching job seven years ago, her boss refused to accept it telling her to take a few days to rethink her stance. She had been a trained primary school language and social studies teacher for 13 years. By her friends’ and bosses’ standards she was a good at her job. PHOTO/JEFF ANGOTE

What you need to know:

  • Four years in, she realised that she had more passion for her students and her interactions with them than she had for the job – a surprising thing seeing as she didn’t have children of her own at the time.
  • While it gives her a sense of fulfilment, attuning to the pain of her clients sometimes gets to her and she has to seek therapy from other therapists. Other than self-preservation, seeking therapy makes her a better therapist as it helps her get an understanding of what it feels like to be a patient.

When Hamida Ahmed tendered her resignation from her teaching job seven years ago, her boss refused to accept it telling her to take a few days to rethink her stance.

She had been a trained primary school language and social studies teacher for 13 years. By her friends’ and bosses’ standards she was a good at her job.

She had stumbled into the teaching profession and it took a while for her to wrap her mind around the idea but once she was in class talking to students, it grew on her.

Four years in, she realised that she had more passion for her students and her interactions with them than she had for the job – a surprising thing seeing as she didn’t have children of her own at the time.

She wanted more from her job and she first attempted to change the situation by enrolling for a diploma in sociology in 2000. This qualification led to her being put in charge of counselling at her school and for a while, she basked in the increased personal contact that she got with the children.

MONOTONY IN ROUTINE

“I loved talking to them and my passion for counselling grew but still I felt limited by my job; I had gotten too comfortable and I knew my routine by heart. At the end of 2006, I just didn’t want to teach anymore,” she recalls.

Her husband had seen her passion grow firsthand and her dissatisfaction too, so when he brought her application forms for an undergraduate degree at USIU, it was just the prod she needed to quit.

Her mother received the news with shock especially because she wasn’t leaving this job for another better-paying one but to go back to school.

Her boss thought she was making a mistake leaving a job that was permanent and pensionable while her friends, most of whom were teachers, thought she was being irrational, and told her that she didn’t have to quit her job.

They advised her to pursue her passion as a side hustle. 

“But when I sat in that first psychology class, I knew this was it,” she says.

Soon after graduating, she enrolled for her master’s and then began thinking about setting up a practice.

In early 2012, together with a psychologist friend, she set up her first private practice which stayed afloat for only six months before they closed shop.

Her clients kept calling her but she was a bit hesitant to reopen. She took some time to study the market and noticed that while there were many people in need of her services as a psychotherapist, it was clear that most were not aware that such services were accessible.

Also, she noted that there was still stigma attached to mental health issues; people needed to know that it is okay to seek help.

DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

From a more informed place, A Diamond in The Rough Counselling Services was born in November 2012.

This time round, she hit the ground running armed with an aggressive marketing strategy to get the word out there.

Her strategy did not fail her. As principal psychotherapist, she began by seeing clients at her office, assessing and treating mental disorders using evidence-based therapies.

A little under two years in, she has taken up consultancy work on a larger level in the corporate world.

“I have found my purpose,” she beams.

Most of her clients come to her on the first day beaten. There are those she has met who are unforgettable like a man she encountered a few months ago when she was working with refugees from the neighboring Somalia.

He came to her desperate for just a few seconds of her time. He had a haunted look in his eyes and carried a photograph of his severed arm; proof of his despair. Seeing this man smile, she says, gave her more gratification than she imagines 20 years of teaching would have given her.

While it gives her a sense of fulfilment, attuning to the pain of her clients sometimes gets to her and she has to seek therapy from other therapists. Other than self-preservation, seeking therapy makes her a better therapist as it helps her get an understanding of what it feels like to be a patient.

Seven years after that first class, Hamida still sits in a psychology class but this time, she is pursuing a doctorate in clinical psychology.

Her biggest hassle right now is juggling between running a business and being wife, mother and student. She shares that it is a tough balancing act but maintains that it isn’t impossible.

“I am at peace with the direction I have taken. Finally I am my own boss.”