by Saira I Qureshi Ed Psych M.A., LMHC
Working with children and youth is a great experience for child and adolescent mental health practitioners. Our faith teaches us to be particularly kind to children and youth so that they can grow up to be responsible and confident Muslims. At each developmental level, an IP practitioner can appropriately utilize psychospiritual interventions with the young children, youth and their caregivers.
In faith-based schools, children and adolescents can be helped in a variety of ways by school mental health counseling staff where present. As younger age children and adolescents grow during their school age years from K12 (in US educational system context), they undergo a myriad of personal-individual, family and school as well as community experiences which can prove to be positive or negative for their normal and healthy development across their age years.
Common Childhood and Adolescence age Disorders
Disorders of anxiety, mood, stress and trauma, ADHD, Autism, OCD, psychological and emotional disturbances and dysregulation can emerge from negative psychosocial experiences and pressures both at homes and in schools. If treatment is not sought earlier on, existing and undiagnosed disorders can impact not only the day-to-day emotional and psychological wellbeing of children and adolescents, but also their academic performance, attachment and personality development aspects. Furthermore, absence of treatment can lead to the development of comorbidities and will likely cause intensified frustration on the part of the youth and their parents/caregivers as well as tension at schools. This is partly how youth will engage in attention seeking or avoidant behaviors and develop externalizing (outward aggression expression of inner turmoil from unmet treatment needs) or internalizing disorders (inward depressive and low self-esteem feelings and related negative thought patterns).
It is essential to fully appreciate the multiple points of interventions which we are fortunate in offering to children and adolescents. These include immediate caregivers, extended family, at-schools, mosques and as well as other community members who interact with students, in general. For instance, students have their pediatrician, school nurses, sports coaches, a mentoring teacher, and mental health clinicians available at the schools or in the community’s health clinics.
Therapeutic use of social emotional learning (SEL) skills
Social emotional and behavioral problems are commonly experienced by young children and adolescents and if early interventions can help support and provide safe and healing opportunities for them, their internal and external sense of hope, confidence in themselves and others, and resilience can be preserved. With each one of these intervention points, adults can continually offer encouragement and discipline when needed so that children and adolescents are protected from reaching higher severity levels in their symptoms. For example, bullying by peers, isolation as a getaway from difficult and threatening school environment, and rejection by teachers are negative experiences that are highly detrimental to children and adolescents’ sense of belonging in a school community.
Islamic Psychology integration in mental health treatments for children and adolescents
Islam as a faith and way of life place huge emphasis on learning and teaching good practices. Be it personal or public interactions with each other or selfcare related to aspects of one’s overall health and wellbeing. It is important to keep in mind that as providers of support and care for youth, all adults must have a good level of own personal wellbeing attained before they can help children and adolescents feel safe, supported and encouraged to grow up confident. It means that we must facilitate parents/caregivers, and support school staff in assessing their own feelings, thoughts, attitudes, lens and interpretations of experiences and expectations so that in turn they are better able to support children and youth in their lives.
With the field of Islamic Psychology distinguishing itself from secular western theoretical models, paradigms of treatment modalities and interventional techniques in practice, there are also various good reasons for appreciating the overlap and universal developmentally appropriate interventions which are therapeutic for children, adolescents and their families, such as, social emotional learning and mindfulness-based stress reduction skills. Both of these self-organizational and coping skills are encouraged in Islamic therapeutic interventions through meditation, prayers, developing an attitude of humility, patience, purposefulness, and gratitude to Allah swt.
IP practitioner can integrate developmentally supportive psychospiritual interventions for children and adolescents
IP practitioners have the advantage of addressing treatment needs of children and adolescents at all developmental levels, based not only on the mainstream bio-psycho-social intervention strategies and techniques, but also can integrate the psychospiritual interventions to help children and adolescents development deeper sense of self by becoming familiar with using their connection with the Divine and through appreciation of this relationship as the created being, recognize their strengths for healthier coping. Whether it is distress from illness, loss, violence in the family and community, or presence of learning disabilities which a given youth is emotionally and psychologically struggling with, IP interventions can help both the youth and the family process and set therapeutic goals attainment steps in place which can in turn offer practical solutions to the affective, cognitive and behavioral problems that youth may be faced with.
It is important to note that IP based psychospiritual health concepts and coping skills can be effectively used with individual youth and/or in family and school groups settings. Below is a list of ways in which IP therapists can help youth, their caregivers and school staff as well as community, using an integrative IP approach to treatment needs.
- Educate and raise awareness about unique mental health needs of Muslim and Muslimah youth.
- Provide education to parents and caregivers about the importance of paying attention to youth’s emotional and psychological symptoms, especially when the families are going through difficult shifts such as parental separation or divorce and other life situations that require new emotional adjustment.
- Normalize and encourage in learning to balance reasonable level of life stressors to help youth overcome their personal weaknesses and set health goals for establishing and maintaining a good plan for selfcare in a gradual and consistent manner.
- Build a solid set of referral system for suitable mental health providers, local and regional educational programs for success in academics at schools, youth programs around-the-year, mentoring and internship programs for youth and spiritual knowledge-based groups for boys and girls with Muslim faith educators and Imam and Sheikha in the community.
- At the broader community level, offer educational and awareness raising talks about Islamic Psychology and invite non-Muslim colleagues and counseling students to develop and augment their multifaith and diverse ethnic and cultural counseling skills, specifically when offering psychological treatment services to Muslim children and adolescents.
- Advocate for supportive educational system and societal practices to help Muslim youth feel a sense of belonging and help them develop character and social interactions and emotional regulation skills which they can then practice with their peers from different cultures and faiths and in variety of social settings.
- Address developmental concerns and medical treatment needs as well as good self-organizational skills for youth to grow up physically healthy and able to manage day-to-day stressors without becoming emotionally and psychologically overwhelmed.
- Collaborate with local summer break spiritual educational youth groups, retreat programs. Offer parents and caregivers their information and share with schools as recommended summertime activities for youth to use as experiential and exposure opportunities for improving their self-confidence, Deen knowledge and social-emotional skills – all of which can help support youth’s social, emotional, psychological and spiritual health.
- IP practitioners should consistently continue development of IP-informed clinical skills and interventions to help youth/students with different clinical presentations.
- In clinical training programs across universities in the country and globally, support Islamic Psychology theoretical framework and its applications, invest in this discipline to be taught at graduate level clinical psychology, counseling and psychiatry programs for trainees to get trained in integrating Islamic Psychology based psychospiritual interventions in their clinical practices.
Conclusion
The perspectives shared in this article are hopefully helpful in reflecting on one’s own role in the lives of children and adolescents which we seek in our clinical work and in the community, in general. Additionally, it is always recommendable to consult scholarship in Islamic psychology textbooks and self-help books written by Muslim and Muslimah research psychologists and therapists. These books can be used by parents and other caregivers, schoolteachers, school counselors, Imams, coaches, and other professionals as well as community members, in general, to offer developmentally and emotionally supportive environments and mental health services. At the end of the article, please see the references for further reading.
The times and present state of the world require everyone to be attuned inwardly to one’s own strengths and healing needs. Adults have responsibility for themselves and for the youth in their care and in fact, any child or adolescent who may need supportive help. Clarity, hope as well as resilience cannot be accessed and felt unless both adults and youth are receptive to a healthier way of living and willing to adapt to different set of habits to replace the ones that hold them back from healing and feeling optimistic, universal connection with likeminded peaceful individuals and communities and receive life being full of life and as the best of nations as Muslims are expected by Allah swt.
Although, this article is not in any way comprehensive in reviewing various specific youth cases and successful IP application to them, it is hoped that readers will be able to get a good sense of how developmentally supporting psychospiritual interventions can help youth as individual minors and as students, gain and maintain adequate and optimal psychological, emotional as well as spiritual health.
References
Ahmed, S., & Amer, M.M. (Eds.). (2012). Counseling Muslims: Handbook of Mental Health Issues and Interventions (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203893814
Al-Karam, C. Y. (Ed.). (2018). Islamically integrated psychotherapy: Uniting faith and professional practice. Templeton Press
Utz, Aisha. (2009). Nurturing Eeman in Children. International Islamic Publishing House IIPH
Islamic Educational Coaching Resources