Lara Naz Karademir Kulaksız
I am a counsellor and play therapist working with children, teenagers and parents. At the centre of my work is trying to understand the experience behind children’s behaviour and building a relationship with the child based on trust.
I completed my medical education at Başkent University Faculty of Medicine. I then trained as a specialist in child and adolescent mental health at Trakya University. During my specialist training I carried out clinical and academic work on the development, assessment and psychological difficulties of children and adolescents. I completed my specialist thesis in 2025.
I completed my thesis by examining the relationship between self-harm behaviour in adolescents and certain genetic variations linked to the oxytocin receptor and CD38. The study investigated the relationship between the OXTR rs53576, OXTR rs2254298 and CD38 rs3796863 gene polymorphisms and self-harm behaviour in adolescents.
My field at Art of Mind, however, is not providing health care but child, teen and parent counselling.
Education and professional development
Among my trainings for working with children are Child-Centered Play Therapy and facilitator training in the Mindfulness and Compassion-Based Resilience Program for Children.
I am also an Attentioner practitioner. Attentioner is a field of practice that includes structured work on attention skills in children.
In addition, I have attended training programmes in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy with children and adolescents, supportive psychotherapy, art therapy-based psychosocial support, and eating disorders in children and adolescents.
At Art of Mind, these trainings are not treated as standard protocols applied one by one, but as parts of professional experience that help to understand the needs of the child and family.
Certificates and trainings
- Play therapy training: Child-Centered Play Therapy, Ahenk Psychology (Mehmet Teber), 2025
- Mindfulness and Compassion-Based Resilience Program for Children: Program developed by Prof. Dr. Zümra Atalay and Dr. Özlem Sürücü, June 2026
- Children’s yoga specialisation (Yoga Alliance):
My approach
Child-centred
The child’s age, developmental level, personality and circumstances are taken into account. What a child wants to say is understood not only through words, but also through their expression in play and in relationships.
Relationship-focused
Counselling is not made up only of the techniques used. A relationship in which the child can feel safe, experience not being judged and move at their own pace is the foundation of the work.
Non-directive
No ready-made recipes telling the child what to do in every situation are used. Especially in play-based work, space is given to the child’s own initiatives, choices and way of expressing themselves.
Holistic
The child is not considered alone. Family relationships, school, friendships, cultural context, life changes and the child’s developmental stage can be thought about together.
Based on evidence and training
Knowledge from professional training, research and clinical experience forms the background of the work. But no method is assumed to be automatically suitable for every child.
A professional path from Turkey to the Netherlands
I was born in Turkey and began living in the Netherlands after completing my education and specialist training in Turkey.
I know that moving to a different country is not just starting to live in a new place; it can bring with it many experiences to do with language, culture, relationships, belonging and repositioning oneself.
That is why migration, belonging, identity development and the experiences of children growing up between different cultures are among my professional interests.
Being multicultural is not a problem in itself. A child growing up with more than one language or culture can be an important context for understanding their experience; it is not automatically seen as a problem to be addressed.