Hello, I am Rabia Jaffar. I am thirty years old and have lived in Karachi, Pakistan all my life. I am a Clinical Psychologist and Ph.D fellow at the Institute of Clinical Psychology, University of Karachi. I am also a mother to a five-year-old. Here is a brief description of my journey into academics.
I completed Intermediate (12th grade) in 2008 and wanted to pursue law. I got accepted into the law program at a major university in Lahore, however, being a female in a conservative household, I wasn’t allowed to go. I tried to convince my family to allow me to apply at the University of Karachi for an undergraduate degree, but it was deemed to be an unsafe place. I turned nineteen by the end of that year and was engaged and eventually married a year or so later.
I thought my life was over, but I couldn’t bear the thought of not continuing my education, so I grasped on to whatever was available to me. I got enrolled into a two-year bachelor’s program at the St. Joeseph’s College for Women and completed my B.A in 2010-11. It was during this time that I fell in love with psychology. I realised that it came very easily to me. I was still interested in pursuing law, however people around me had convinced me that studying after getting married was difficult, almost impossible. I thought a degree in psychology would be easier to pursue, so I abandoned law. I applied for a Masters (M.A) degree in Psychology at the University of Karachi starting 2012. The two years I spent there have been the best of my life. Yes, there were clashes between the student chapters of political parties, but it rarely affected those unrelated.
During my time there, I found out about the Institute of Clinical Psychology (ICP), which is a part of the University. I decided to get a diploma in Clinical Psychology from there (anything to continue my education) after my masters. I was still with the mindset especially because of constant reminders by ‘people’, that it is not possible to get a higher education after marriage. However, I realised it wasn’t so while attending an open house at ICP. Looking at the almost all female faculty there, some of them married with children having fulfilling careers, I asked myself: Why not? So, I applied for the Ph.D program, partly out of spite.
In 2014 I started my M.Phil/ Ph.D coursework at the Institute. It’s a two year M.Phil and one year Ph.D coursework, followed by an original thesis. I got pregnant at the end of the first year and delivered my baby in the middle of the second year. This time was difficult due to many complications, however everyone from admin to faculty to my colleagues were super supportive and accommodating. I completed my coursework at the end of 2016. Since then, I have been working on my thesis research.
When my coursework ended, I started my private clinical practice from home after encouragement from my clinical supervisor and have continued it since. It’s a small practice but keeps me in touch. I basically provide psychotherapy and counselling to adults. Apart from this, I worked as a clinical psychologist at the Institute of Behavioral Psychology for over a year. Here I worked with children, conducting assessments and doing play therapy. Currently, my focus is to complete my thesis and consequently doctorate.
I am attempting to adapt an Intelligence test, based on the US population according to the Pakistani students. This includes, changing the culturally biased questions and modifying questions according to our own education system. This has been challenging as we don’t have a uniform education system in our country or any uniformity within the city for that matter. In addition to that it includes conducting reliability and validity studies. For this, I had to go to different schools and administer the adapted version of the test on students. The goal is to have a standardised tool for measuring IQ, based on the local population.