An Islamic Theoretical Orientation to Psychotherapy

Abdallah Rothman, LPC

MUCH OF WHAT has been written on and explored with regards to the intersection of Islam and psychology tends to examine the Muslim experience and how psychotherapy can cater to this population. It has been more of a response to the increasing call for multicultural capacity building than it has been an exploration of psychology from the perspective of an Islamic worldview. This focus tends to result in studies of best practice in working with Muslim clients, which can be problematic given that the world's population of Muslims consists of hundreds of different cultures (Kettani, 2010). Yet the desire for the field of psychology to understand how to work with Muslims and the palatable need for mental health services among many populations of Muslim people have given rise to a growing field of Muslim Mental Health. It may be that the most effective way to find common ground among this diverse population is to focus more on the Islamic orientation of these people rather than their relative identity as Muslims. However, there remains a dearth of collective understanding on how an Islamic worldview can be practically and effectively integrated into psychotherapy as well as a lack of understanding of how an Islamic orientation to psychology might also have something to offer to a broader range of people beyond those who identify as Muslim.

I am Muslim and I am a psychotherapist, but I do not consider what I do to be Muslim Mental Health primarily. While many of my clients are Muslim and I work with them on issues of mental health, this label does not accurately describe the focus of my work. My approach to psychology and mental health is based in the Islamic tradition, and Muslims thus tend to identify with it because it is a familiar framework to them. However, when I work with non-Muslim clients I do not change my fundamental orientation, nor do I shift the focus of the actual treatment goals. My goal is to help human beings attune to what works for optimizing their human experience.

I like to make a distinction between Muslim psychology and Islamic psychology. Muslim psychology focuses on how Muslims think and behave. It is primarily a culturally adapted approach to Western therapy that incorporates language, customs, and culturally relevant sentiments into the therapeutic process. This can be useful for many reasons, as it allows for psychotherapy to be more relevant to Muslim populations and to perhaps make such services palatable where they may otherwise be stigmatized as "Western," "secular," "un-Islamic," or simply not culturally relevant. A great number of practitioners are Muslim and have studied psychology and therefore may be equipped to approach their work from within their cultural or religious viewpoint for the benefit of their Muslim clients. Far fewer practitioners have an understanding of how to approach psychotherapy from within an Islamic paradigm of psychology. Thus, this is the distinction between a Muslim psychologist and a Muslim who practices Islamic psychology.

In my understanding, Islamic psychology is an indigenous approach to the study and understanding of human psychology that is informed by the teaching and knowledge from the Quran and the Prophetic tradition (Haque, 1998; Utz, 2011). It is grounded in the ontological paradigm that is elucidated in the Islamic tradition, rather than the secular Western paradigm in which conventional psychology is rooted. Stemming from this, Islamic psychotherapy is an indigenous approach to mental health practice that is derived from Islamic traditions and practices. An Islamic psychology approach to therapy recognizes and engages the soul in the conceptualization of the self and often focuses on the heart rather than the mind as the center of the person. These are just some basic underpinnings that constitute an Islamic theoretical orientation.

As practitioners, when we are trained in theoretical orientations that are based in secular conceptualizations of the human condition that do not necessarily include a recognition of the existence of a higher power, much less any specific understanding of the person in relation to God, we are left to our own devices to incorporate these conceptions into our work with clients. While this may seem straightforward, it can wind up being a patched-together, integrative approach to therapy and not an overt theoretical orientation. What often happens as a result is that clinicians rely on the theoretical orientations in which they have been trained and that operate under a Western secular paradigm as the base of their therapeutic modalities. While many of the techniques, methods, and approaches have merit and offer useful tools for working with clients effectively, the theoretical underpinnings of such orientations are not necessarily aligned with the Islamic paradigm. This can be problematic in working with Muslim clients in that the therapist may be inadvertently guiding them in a direction other than the one defined in the Islamic tradition. What perhaps gets even less attention is the awareness of the possibility that conventional secular conceptualizations of the self may in fact be guiding people in general, not just Muslims, away from the most holistic and optimal way for personal transformation and healing.

Because there is often no clear understanding as to what exactly someone means when they refer to "Islamic psychology," as well as there not being much of a history of the discipline to refer to, I will give a brief account of how my personal journey led me to this approach. I also discuss my experience and how it informs my own interpretation of how to approach an Islamic model of psychotherapy that I have learned from mentors in this emerging field and other teachers grounded in the Islamic tradition. One of the key aspects to my approach to Islamic psychotherapy involves my own deep inner work on myself. I will explain how much of my approach to working with clients stems from and is influenced by my submission to the same journey...