GET TO KNOW…
kulkiran kaur nakai, psy.d.
***NOTE: Kulkiran is currently at capacity.***
If you’re still interested in their services, feel free to reach out here to inquire more about the waitlist, otherwise visit this resource page for support in locating alternative services. Thank you!
Kulkiran’s name means “the rays of light that shine on the family” in Punjabi.
Kulkiran (pronounced Cuul-KEER-ren | they/them) carries social identities as a queer, fat, and neuroEMERGENT first-generation Punjabi-Sikh-American and elder millennial with invisible disabilities. Beyond identity, they are a one-of-a-kind spirited-human-person who brings a well-rounded, creative, synergistic, vibrant, humbled, and grounded energy to any space.
Kulkiran has direct experience with marginalization, discrimination, and oppression for their intersecting identities throughout their life. They understand the deep impact that prejudice and stigma, as well as power and privilege, has on one’s mental health and wellbeing. After years of professional training and personal exploration, they are not only fulfilling their calling, but are also building their legacy. They are honored to serve life with others who share the vision and values for abolition and collective liberation.
Kulkiran values actively working on their own traumas and biases, addressing power dynamics, unlearning colonial paradigms and practices, and dismantling all systems designed to oppress the people. They are committed to socio-political and cultural change in efforts towards thriving in a world of loving justice, liberation, and integrity. As such, Kulkiran is intentional about helping to cultivate meaningful, reparative, and transformative relationships with anyone whom they engage with. It is Kulkiran’s hope that individuals may become their own compassionate caregiver and agent of change to resource how to live an authentic, value-guided, and worthwhile life for the benefit of all. And so it is!
MORE ABOUT THEIR WORK:
As a liberatory psychologist and healing justice practitioner, Kulkiran operates within a relational-constructivist foundation of humanistic, systemic, multicultural, intersectional feminist, decolonial, and abolitionist frameworks. They value being a grounded mirror and humble model who co-creates a safe and secure therapeutic atmosphere for providing customized, holistic, and evidenced-based individual, couples, and group therapy. Kulkiran practices multi-theoretical, trauma-informed, and multiculturally competent care, and they enjoy specializing in liberation-focused, strengths-based, and indigenous-oriented practices when working with marginalized and oppressed communities.
They continue to build specialty in the art of alchemy and in complex trauma, perfectionism, codependency, and relational rupture and repair.
They prioritize space for immigrant, BIPOC, 2SLGBTQIA+, fat, and neurodivergent communities.
Their main treatment approaches include Hakomi, Internal Family Systems, third-wave Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Mindfulness Self-Compassion (MSC), Shame Resilience (SR), and Somatics. They also incorporate psychodynamic, creative/ alternative therapies in treatment including map conceptualizations, positive psychology, tarot card interpretations based in depth and spiritual psychology, energy work, and narrative and play therapies including psychodrama and improv.
Kulkiran is kink/polyamory and neurodivergent aware, aligned, and affirming.
They also provide clinical supervision and psychedelic integration support.
INSIDE THE THERAPY ROOM:
Alongside their heartfelt therapeutic style, Kulkiran is an alchemist that takes a collaborative, encouraging, and empowering approach that is consent-based and feedback-oriented. They hope to demonstrate how to slow down and be present, access and anchor to our inner light, to befriend our shadow, to let go of unnecessary suffering, to forgive ourselves for our past transgressions, to learn how to unapologetically be ourselves and love ourselves into becoming, to believe in our worth and embrace the essence of who we are, to belong to ourselves and trust in our intuitive wisdom, to embody grace and humility for the messiness of our humanity, and to have faith in the process of healing and transformative growth, personally and collectively.
Above all, it is of the utmost importance that folx who work with Kulkiran leave the room feeling heard, seen, valued, understood, held, and Loved.
THEIR PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND:
Kulkiran earned their doctorate in clinical psychology at Adler University in Chicago, IL in 2016, and their masters in counseling psychology at Argosy University in San Diego, CA in 2010. They completed their masters internship at the San Diego Hospice in 2009, their doctoral internship at Florida State University's Counseling Center in 2015-16, and their post-doctoral residency at the University of Michigan's Counseling and Psychological Services in 2016-17.
Kulkiran started their career post-degree as a staff therapist at Integrative Empowerment Group, PLLC in 2017 and became a fully licensed psychologist in 2019. Soon after, they actively started their journey to decolonize their practice and their life starting with the insights and wisdoms from Dr. Shawna Murray-Browne, Ph.D., LCSW-C and Akilah Riley-Richardson, MSW, CCTP.
Kulkiran is trained in Level 1 of Internal Family Systems (IFS), and Level 2 specializing in relationships with Intimacy From the Inside Out (IFIO). They are also trained and certified in Level 1 and 2 of Liberation Reiki. Kulkiran is trained to practice Systemic Trauma in Couple's Therapy as well as Embodied Conflict Transformation and Conflict Mediation Services. They are a Somatic and Psychedelic Practitioner who specializes in the QTBIPOC population (they do not sell or endorse illegal substances). Kulkiran is actively in training to become a certified Psychodramatist, as well as a practitioner of liberatory improv through Theater of the Oppressed and Playback Theatre specializing in Transformative Conflict and Loving-Justice.
Kulkiran actively receives support for professional development and ethical integrity through consultation and supervision for IFS by Crystal Jones, LCSW and Kim Paulus, LMFT, and for Psychodrama by Daisy Martinez-DiCarlo, LMHC, LPC, CP, PAT and Dr. Scott Giocomucci, DSW, LCSW, BCD, CGP, FAAETS, TEP. Kulkiran also receives consultation for dismantling colonialism and supremacy to transform DEI initiatives with Michelle Nicole. Kulkiran is actively developing and refining a sustainable, embodied, anti-oppressive, authentic, and liberatory leadership style and revolutionary loving-justice praxis with psychodramatists Dr. Leticia Nieto, PsyD., LMFT, TEP and Miriam Zachariah, MA, TEP, and with loving-justice practitioner Kai Cheng Thom.
Kulkiran dressed as their drag persona, Mx. Madame Kiki, serving Goth Pastel Dragon Queen of Queer Glory. This photo is of them hosting for the 2021 Ypsi Pride festival.
OUTSIDE THE THERAPY ROOM:
Kulkiran is more than what they do for a living. They also serve life and the community as a creatrix, a performance artivist (artist + activist: through improv, drag, and stand-up comedy), a community organizer with Ypsilanti Pride, a healing justice practitioner with Detroit's Healing by Choice! and Sarasota's Theater for Social Justice, a teaching assistant for Long Beach’s QTIFS, and a psychedelic integration practitioner with Southern California’s Queer Psychedelic Society and New York’s Asian Psychedelic Collective. They also serve on Detroit’s Care Based Safety team’s Mission Circle to support the integrity and ethics of the organization’s efforts in non-carceral and unarmed responses to community safety.
They love spending quality free time with their loved ones, dancing, going for bike rides, listening to podcasts and audiobooks, practicing art and qigong, being in nature, baking, cooking nutritious and delicious meals, playing on swings or with bubbles, bonfires, and doing crafty or meaningful things for themselves or for others. They have a special affinity for animals and whimsical things. They are delighted to harness the powers of creativity and play to navigate the continuous journey of self-discovery and self-evolution in their lifetime.
What’s more, Kulkiran has directly experienced the transformative power of spontaneity as therapy in community. They understand the courage it takes to step into their own light, to reclaim their voice, and to live out an authentic, wholesome, and meaningful life. They look forward to holding divine sacred space for others to do the same.
***NOTE: Kulkiran is currently at capacity.***
If you’re still interested in their services, feel free to reach out here to inquire more, otherwise check out their resource page for support in locating alternative services. Thank you!
Azaad means "free" in Punjabi
Azaad means "free" in Punjabi
Coming from the Persian root, “LIBERATED”
behind the logo + the name
This logo was designed and drawn by Kulkiran and merges several meaningful healing justice principles of life and living:
🪷 The Lotus ~ for lessons of beauty in the mud of the alchemical process of healing and becoming
🌀 The Labyrinth ~ for protected guidance on the sacred path of awakening, enlightenment, and integration
👁️ The Eye ~ for energetic anchoring to the core of divine truth, wisdom, and authenticity
✨ The twinkle in the eye is the compass needle of one’s own soul’s path
💫 The dot just northeast of that twinkle represents the connection to the cosmos
“Azaad Healing Justice Studio” was chosen as the organization’s name because:
🐲 “Azaad” means “Free” in Punjabi, coming from the Persian root word for “Liberated.”
⚖️ “Healing Justice” seeks to address the symptoms and root causes for trauma of oppression within socio-political and economic structures by implementing creative, trauma-informed liberation practices of social justice.
🎭 “Studio” serves as a collective platform for alchemically playing with deeply embedded psychic and somatic material through spontaneity within performance artivism and psychodramatic therapeutic theater methods.