As in the early Christian and Judaic traditions, Islamic scholars speculated extensively on the nature of the soul (psyche) and such concepts as self (Arabic: nafs), identity, being, and mental aberrations. Medieval Islamic thinkers drew frequently on Neoplatonic concepts as well as commentaries on Aristotle’s De anima to create frameworks for psychological inquiry, and they adopted the Galenic-Hippocratic humoral model which proposed physiological origins of mental illness. Thus western and Islamic psychological theories possess some common roots. However, modern Islamic mental health professionals have argued that Islam provides a unique mode of being necessitating the integration of shariah law and Muslim perspectives on the nature of reality and creation, including the human mind, into psychological and psychiatric theory and praxis. This contribution provides an overview of the historical development of psychology in Muslim-majority societies from the perspectives of medicine, natural philosophy and theology spanning the early Islamic period to recent attempts to develop a modern Islamic psychology suitable for allopathic evidence-based clinical counselling and diagnosis. A critique is provided of some of the current theoretical frameworks of Utz (2011), Haque (2009), Rasool (2015) and Traditional Islamically Integrated Psychotherapy (TIIP).

Authors:
Alan Weber, Weill Cornell Medicine, Qatar

About the Presenter(s)
Professor Alan Weber is a University Assistant Professor/Lecturer at Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar

See this presentation on the full schedule – Saturday Schedule

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