Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A growing number of clinical therapists are becoming aware of the need to incorporate into their therapeutic approach the spirituality and religious beliefs of their clients. Most of the work in this area has focused on members of the Christian faith, but resources for those of the Islamic faith are urgently needed as well. Historically, mental illness has been heavily stigmatized within Islam, making it difficult for clinicians to diagnose and treat their Muslim clients.
This book--a collection of essays written exclusively by Muslim clinicians--shares tested strategies for integrating the principles of Islam into the framework of clinical psychother-apy. The contributing experts demonstrate the compatibility between the religious tenets held sacred by their clients and the empirical strategies held efficacious by science. A range of topics is discussed and deftly enriched with the teachings of the faith. These include marital counseling; cognitive therapy; family therapy; psychodynamic therapy; and children and adolescent therapy.
Focused, accessible, and practical, this book is a must-have for clinical therapists who want to honor the beliefs of their Muslim clients while still administering to them the benefits of psychotherapy. Such a union of spirituality and mental health promises to promote an enduring state of well-being by speak-ing to what is most deeply meaningful in a client's life.
Synopsis
Integrating the Islamic faith with modern psychotherapy is at the forefront of the spiritually integrated psychotherapy movement. To bring this work to wider attention and to promote its continuation, Dr. Carrie York Al-Karam has brought together the present volume of nine essays, each of which is written by a Muslim clinician who practices Islamically integrated psychotherapy (IIP)-- a modern approach that unites the teachings, principles, and interventions of the faith with Western therapeutic approaches.
As delineated in the Introduction, IIP has emerged from a variety of domains including the psychology of religion and spirituality, multicultural psychology and counseling, transpersonal psychology, Muslim Mental Health, and Islamic Psychology. The individual chapters then describe a variety of ways IIP is practiced by Muslim clinicians in their service provision with Muslim clients.
The contributors discuss a wide range of topics, such as how Islam can be viewed as a system for psychological wellbeing, or a "science of the soul"; what marital counseling can look like from an Islamically-integrated perspective; Prophet Mohammed as a psycho-spiritual exemplar in a new approach called The HEART Method; the use of Quranic stories in family therapy; as well as using Islamic teachings when working with Muslim children and adolescents.
A description of the various approaches is supplemented with discussions of their theoretical underpinnings as well as research-based recommendations for advancing clinical application. What emerges is a vital resource for Muslim and non-Muslim clinicians alike as well as the lay Muslim reader wanting to know more about how the Islamic faith and psychotherapy are engaging with each other in a modern clinical context.