What Is CaCBT and Why Sukoon's Therapists Are Trained in It

Where CaCBT Comes From

CaCBT for Canadian South Asian communities was developed by Dr. Farooq Naeem, a psychiatrist and researcher at the University of Toronto’s Department of Psychiatry and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). Dr. Naeem is also an advisor to Sukoon and one of the leading international researchers on culturally adapted psychological interventions.

The development process was rigorous: researchers consulted extensively with South Asian community members across Canada — including individuals with lived experience of depression and anxiety, family members, community leaders, and mental health practitioners — to understand how mental health, illness, and treatment are actually understood within South Asian frameworks. That data was then used to create a protocol and training manual for therapists. The research was published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry and supported by CAMH, which formally released the CaCBT tools and training programme in 2023.

A pilot randomized controlled trial of online CaCBT for Canadian South Asians, also conducted by Dr. Naeem’s team, found the approach to be feasible, acceptable, and associated with positive outcomes for anxiety and depression.

What CaCBT Actually Does Differently

CaCBT keeps the evidence-based structure of CBT — identifying patterns of thought, challenging distorted thinking, building behavioural skills — while modifying how those tools are framed and applied.

It takes a relational rather than purely individual frame

Standard CBT tends to focus on the individual’s thoughts and behaviours in isolation. CaCBT explicitly incorporates the family system — recognizing that for most South Asians, identity, wellbeing, and decision-making are deeply relational rather than individual. A ‘thought record’ in CaCBT might include the person’s anticipated response from family, not just their own internal experience.

It integrates spiritual and religious dimensions

For many South Asians, faith — whether Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, or another tradition — is not peripheral to mental health; it is central to how wellbeing is understood and how difficulty is made meaningful. CaCBT makes room for this explicitly, rather than treating it as separate from the therapeutic work.

It uses culturally grounded language and metaphors

The concepts used in therapy — how thoughts are named, how coping is described, what ‘getting better’ is understood to look like — are translated into frameworks that make intuitive sense within South Asian cultural contexts, rather than requiring someone to first adopt Western psychological vocabulary before the work can begin.

It acknowledges collective sources of distress

Family conflict, generational expectations, immigration-related stress, acculturation pressure, and the weight of community visibility are treated as legitimate and clinically significant — not as cultural noise to be filtered out.

The Evidence Base

Beyond the Canadian research, the broader evidence base for culturally adapted psychological interventions is substantial. A meta-analysis published in the journal Behavior Therapy found that culturally adapted mental health interventions were significantly more effective than standard, unadapted ones for people from the target cultural group. A 2026 meta-analysis in the journal Behavioral Sciences confirmed consistent positive outcomes across culturally adapted CBT programmes across populations.

The Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) explicitly advocates for culturally and linguistically relevant mental health services for South Asian Canadians. The development of CaCBT is a direct response to that advocacy, grounded in community consultation and clinical research.

What This Means in a Sukoon Session

When a Sukoon practitioner uses CaCBT-informed approaches, the practical effect is that a client does not spend the first several sessions educating their therapist about what it means to navigate South Asian family dynamics, collective responsibility, or the particular texture of diaspora experience. The practitioner already holds that context as part of their clinical training.

This does not mean the therapist assumes they know everything about a specific client’s experience — every person is different, and genuine curiosity remains central to the work. It means the baseline understanding is already there, and the work can begin from a place of genuine meeting rather than cultural translation.

See also: What Does Culturally Adapted Care Actually Mean? for the broader clinical picture of how cultural adaptation improves therapeutic outcomes.

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Every Sukoon practitioner is trained in CaCBT. Start with a free 15-minute connection call and find someone whose approach, language, and cultural understanding feel like a genuine fit.

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