What The Mental Health Industry Gets Wrong Dogma Disrupted

Islam is not therapy. So it is not purely exclusively therapy now Yes, of course Islam is therapeutic Salah is therapeutic but it's not just like part of this bag of Oh yeah, you can try this yoga your your your Muslim, right? Yeah, you can try some vicar and you know, do what you want. We're not disparaging your mentor practitioner, the GP, did you go into a psychiatrist, you're going to even a psychologist at all that's not what we're doing at all. We're really trying to save mental health. We're basically saying that yes, but not enough and it's got some baggage and if it were purified through an Islamic lens, then it would actually completely hit the mark

Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah and welcome back to dogma disrupted today we're talking about the mental health industry. Now, mental health is something that's gotten a lot more attention in the last five to 10 years and with good reason, with people losing their sense of what this life is even about. We have people who are sort of searching for purpose and feel depressed more than ever, and this is a touch of the Muslim community in the West, just as much as it says any other community. However, in our zeal to pick up and to pay attention to long neglected mental health issues, are we unwittingly swallowing dogmas and ideologies that actually undermine our faith? To help us unpack

this? We've brought back to the program. Dr. Zuhair, welcome back, it's great to see you again.

Good to be back home to my mom, Tom. So that's the the basic premise for this episode is that we're sort of deconstructing the mental health industry. Mental health is something that everybody agrees is important. However, mental health how we approach mental health is not there's not just one way, right? So give us a sense of where the industry sort of is at what's the default approach to mental health? What are the stakes involved? And are there ways in which we're actually undermining our own faith in our attempts to take care to take care of something that is really worthwhile?

Does that go head on

Hamdulillah. So when you look at mental health as a concept, or as a phenomenon, and the West, it has a very short history actually, in the sense that, just as you mentioned, for the Muslim community, starting to realize the importance of it, and the importance to put resources into it, and to actually think about it, same thing from the western point of view, in the academy.

Prior to the psychoanalytic analytic movement, you had William James in the late 1800s or so, who started to kind of focus on this idea of the mind. And then you have the psychoanalytic movement. So those are figures like Freud, and Jung, who starts to speak about the subconscious elements of the human mind and how they affect our conscious elements. And then you start to get, of course, the empirical sciences, start to really take over the idea of psychology. Now, Carl Jung said something very interesting, which is that the West has lost its soul. And it's replaced it with this field of psychology. And so he recognized that, because of the disavow, and the disregard of religion, from

the western point of view, their soul had essentially kind of been neglected. And so psychology was born out of this need to fill that space that was previously filled in western civilization, with religion, and with beliefs and with spiritual practices. And so it's interesting as the decades went on, as I said, the empirical sciences started to really take over the idea of the human mind and the study of the human mind. And so,

when we see today, in the 2020s, almost exclusively most of psychology is rooted in number one, the assumption or the worldview of naturalism, the idea that our mind states that we experience are can all merely be reduced to biological phenomenon. And so this is, I guess, you can say the academic background or backdrop and in a brief sense of mental health, because of course, mental health flows from the way that a person conceptualizes the mind itself, sure, then we understand what is mental health. And so mental health from the western point of view is rooted a lot of it in terms of the the therapeutic approaches, a lot of it is actually rooted in naturalism in terms of the framework

and these sorts of things, even when people start to understand and recognize the need for multidisciplinary approaches to mental health. So not just medications, but also social factors, and also

individual facts

peers and family and environment and all these sorts of things. And this is all done with the recognition and understanding that fundamentally, you're, it's all about the brain and whatever is good for the brain. And that's how it's studied. So that's really, this is really fascinating. I might just pause here to zoom out and to give a sense of the state here. What we're not saying we're not saying that mental health is not important, right? And we're not saying that, for example, that if you're clinically depressed, that you just need to, to pray more, or you just need to, or that everything is in possession, right, because these are, these are sort of the tropes and stereotypes

that unfortunately, unfortunately, there are parts of our community that respond to actual mental sort of health issues with sort of the opposite problem. And maybe we could say that historic history is almost swinging wildly back and forth between two pendulums. And so are excuse me, the penta historical pendulum is swinging back and forth between two extremes. And what we're simply trying to say is that let's not get taken to the other extreme now. And, you know, just because, you know, there's an auntie or an uncle out there that thinks that everything is gin possession, that doesn't mean that absolutely everything is neurons and neurotransmitters and hormones and chemicals,

right, is that there, you know, we do have a paradigm and Islamic paradigm that talks about who the human being is. And the Western paradigm is actually very, very, sort of, in opposition to our Islamic paradigm of the definition of who a human being is. So you're saying that this, this naturalism is like the first step like we're making a laundry list, right? Real, real quick of what are the hidden or implicit sort of assumptions of this entire field, or at least the vast majority of the field. Number one would be naturalism, this idea that everything exists within the physical observable world, maybe we haven't developed the technology yet to be able to detect it. But we're

certain that if we keep on going and progressing that we're going to get to the point where we can explain everything in terms of natural consequences, cause and effect, this material stimuli, right causes this material effect. That's is that fair, that's a very good summary, and also a very good kind of a way of, of understanding this whole situation with recognizing we're still talking, we're not neglecting the importance of mental health, or whatever way you want to describe the, you know, the mood state and the thinking patterns and these sorts of things of an individual. But as you said, recognizing that when we are approaching the subject, making sure we don't come with the same

philosophical baggage, or the same ideological baggage, you can say, as those in the West. So as you said, number one, I would say there's two main core pillars, you can say we have the pillars of human Of course, right, six pillars of human, I'd say that the two pillars of mental health ideology is naturalism from a from a worldview point of view, so that obviously, naturally musi naturalism, that basically means that everything in existence, as a mom was mentioning, can be reduced fundamentally to the elements to the, to the fundamental elements, like the elements that you see in the periodic table, everything can be reduced to those fundamental elements. In essence, the second

pillar, the second token, is humanism, humanism. Humanism, is essentially a, you can say, it's, it's the idea that everything that is done, or everything that is pursued should be done with the purpose of enhancing the human experience, you can say,

and this very human centered type of approach to things. And so when it comes to things like therapy, and when it comes to things like approach,

you generally speaking, Western mental health is very focused purely on what makes a person happy. I know, that's a very simplistic way of saying it, but fundamentally, that's what it comes down to. It's a maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain, right? To give just a concrete example, like when, you know, because obviously, I'm a convert, and I have lots of, you know, all my family is non Muslim. Whenever somebody's sort of at end of life care. The one thing that everybody talks about is pain, pain management, pain management, pain management, to the point where it's almost mechanical, and people aren't talking about the soul and they're not talking about dying

Well, or transitioning to the next life or anything like this. They're talking about, well, how much morphine they give and etc. And well, at least they died. You know, without pain. That's like the single only concern actually. So Allah I think there's two competing kind

kind of sub elements within this idea of humanism, in terms of what a person should pursue hedonism, I think is a is a big one, as you mentioned. And it's interesting, you mentioned end of life, and the focus of this. And that's something I noticed as well. It's something that the medical fraternity recognizes. And it's one of the things actually, that

they mentioned as being unrealistic expectations from people. And there's this push back to try and have patients recognize that sometimes completely eradicating pain is not realistic as a treatment goal, and that there's going to be some level of pain and discomfort, but people are quite pain phobic. I mean, obviously, who likes to be in discomfort, right. But it's interesting, because it's become the ultimate goal, essentially, as you mentioned, with humanism, it's almost like Sorry to interrupt again. But I'm not just trying to follow the thoughts, no, please do it and ism you, which draws us to the life of this world, as opposed to the life of the of the next world. It's that pain

loses meaning, right? Because pain is the primary sort of, you know, world that we exist in is this dunya, right, this worldly life, and therefore, it's, you know, the ends are the sort of, you know, the outcomes that were being attuned to are not the ultimate outcomes of the next life, their outcomes in this world, then pain is only an obstacle, pain is only something that really stands in our way, or is annoying or unpleasant. Whereas when we bring in sort of a fundamentally spiritual worldview, then pain is actually purposeful, right? And we have throughout the Koran or throughout the Sunnah, right? Various types of pain that if you're patient, that you'll actually accrue virtue,

you will, you know, raise and rank on the day of judgment or in the afterlife. So paint, what makes pain tolerable is that it actually has a telos, it has a purpose to it. And when what we're saying is that the humanistic framing of mental health or any sort of medical enterprise removes the purpose from pain entirely. And therefore it can only be sort of a miserable experience. Subhanallah, so beautifully put, and, as you mentioned, there's so many a hadith that emphasize this point of the meaning behind pain, pain is redemptive. And as you said, pain can be virtuous if it's paired with patients, and it can lead to virtue like sober. You know, it's interesting when you read

the thought of the companions visiting each other when they were sick. And they would all mention this point, I mean, the general the generic draw, I love that story, and Inshallah, that a person has meant to say, when a person is visiting the sector, many other jobs in the area as well. I was just reading a little bit more for that, actually, there's a chapter about visiting the sick and whatnot. And it's very interesting how much the focus, as you said, is not on removing the pain, it's actually on increasing the meaning in the pain. It's two very different things, right? Like, they're not trying at that point. And obviously, they don't have access as well to be able to do

that. But it's interesting that even when they did have access, so we have the instance where there was a habia, who was suffering from what appears to be epilepsy, as she was getting recurrent seizure episodes. And she had the opportunity to remove the something completely. What was it it wasn't some medication, it wasn't, you know, the eurosceptics that we have, but it was the dua of the Prophet salallahu Salam, which would have been Mr. Zhang. And it would have been completely removed. And it was a very interesting thing that the Prophet SAW sort of gave her the option. Look, if you're patient, you have Jana, in front of you. And she said, Okay, just make dua that my Outre

doesn't get uncovered SubhanAllah.

And so and so she went on with it afterwards, and the narrations of some of the tabby or when they would see her in the cabin around the cabins. And that was the lady that was the famous lady, she became like a legend in the area because of her decision. And as you said, I think what you said is so beautiful, which is the idea that pain is an excellent point here that shows the difference between humanism and between to hate, which is that and this is everything in life, right? It's all about in doubting meaning to things in life. And so it's not about removal completely of pain. And if that happens is good, we always take the easy option the Prophet saw someone was confronted with

to situate our two decisions, he would always choose the easier one, you read Allah who become a use of Allah, you need to become an answer, Allah wants ease and not hardship 100% We take the easier way, but we recognize if it has to be born, then we're going to bear the pain with recognizing its meaning. Now, one of the things I want to mention just within this idea of humanism as the as the second root of, of the Mental Health dogma, you can say is that even those so there's a push to recognize that hedonism is ultimately does it make a person actually happy in the long term, even in this life, like we talked about long term in the next life, and people recognize that and people

have recognized that for a long time actually. So you didn't know you did

I'm no Meah, which is basically the, the the alternative to hedonism, which is this is this Greek concept, that it's a universal concept. But it was a Greek concept attributed to Aristotle, which is the idea that the happy life or the good life is a life that's lived with virtue. And that's where true pleasures is derived from, rather than just kind of the lower kind of hedonistic pleasures. And this is something that you see within the mental health industry as well, which is encouraging kind of, quote unquote, meaningful activities and volunteering and helping others. But here's the thing, and this is the thing that we need to recognize. It's all it's so important about the framing of it.

See, for them, it's an the human pleasure is the end, mental health and mental well being is the end, that is their goal, as a civilization at this stage, their goal is mental well being that's why mental health has become so big, because they reckon this is this is for them. This is their dunya. This is their agenda, right. Even the prophets, I sort of mentioned that right? This is their agenda. And so for them, mental well being is the most important, you know, by the way, the most common issue that comes to a general practitioner, and I work in general practice. Now in Australia, I'm pretty sure it's the same in other countries as well, is mental health, that is actually the

primary concern that a president the most statistically, most likely that person is going to walk in with. So this is a huge issue. What does that say about about diagnosing where we're at in terms of history and civilization? The thing is, that appears with no clothes to clipboard, no clothes. I mean, I know correlation doesn't equal causation. But the further and further, the West has gone away from religion and God and spirituality and any concept of Revelation. Of course, they were from the people of the book, they had some remnants of that truth and guidance, the further and further away they're getting from that. It's almost like you see that the curve of depression and anxiety

and it's increasing more and more, you know, one in seven children, under the age of 12, would have experienced some sort of mental health issue or crisis is statistics on Australia.

It's, it's something that the when you look at the statistics, it keeps rising, rising, rising, and you have to just scream out, the people don't know why they're here, there is this genuine sense of nihilism of what is the point of life. And it's trying to and what the mental health industry is doing is it's trying to actually provide therapy, not by pushing people along this path and trying to actually discover their purpose. But by completely ignoring it and giving them tools and drugs, and therapy and distractions to distract your mind from those sorts of questions, which is the very interesting thing. They are turning Rob, and Laughlin into therapy, and Medicaid, they're medicating

people's pain, internal pain with this. Now, I want to be very clear here, by the way,

I think this is an important distinction to make as well. Everything we've been talking about, particularly this, what I've been saying now,

it's not referring to those more biologically rooted mental health conditions. And here's the thing that people need to recognize people think and it goes back to the naturalism point. So they look at number one, with naturalism, which is this idea everyone thinks all depression is biological, even some Muslim speakers I've heard say this, like, oh, depression, don't think that this is like, you know, spiritual whatnot. You can, you know, and this is true statement, you can have, you know, high Eman but still have issues with depression, and these sorts of things is biological. This is an incorrect kind of way of framing it, because it, look, here's that, here's the challenge. This is

one of the things one of my, one of my psychology, Musharraf used to say, which is that every mind state is a brain state. But you don't know which way the causal arrow is pointing. Right? Like, if you if you say, oh, everything's all biological, that's because everything that's in your mind, Allah has made some correlation in your brain. That doesn't mean that that everything is fundamentally reduced to your brain at all, as they say, correlation doesn't equal causation, as you said earlier, but then anyways. And so, with this, it's very important to categorize depression into two generally different types. And actually, you find this categorization very early on in the

Muslim tradition, and was a little bulky, actually, was one of the earliest, I believe, to actually have made this distinction. You see this distinction also in real time as well, he makes it in some of my other as well, which is the difference between endogenous depression or biologically rooted depression and reactive depression. There are many different terms to describe these sorts of things. But basically, one of the types of depression is something where the person's life is totally fine. No sad event has happened. It's not like they've got this life of trauma, but they're there

experiencing clinical symptoms of depression and usually this, this kind of symptom,

this usually this kind of symptom phase is, is more the focus on fatigue, can't get out of bed, you're in bed for like 18 hours, low energy, completely lethargic, just low mood, no motivation, not because of anything else, this is something that's a lot more the idea and there's nothing that's happened, they might even have a religious, you know, good family, everything of this religion, whatnot. This is something that seems to be more naturally rooted and more biological in its in its nature and its etiology. And then somebody will find mentions, actually, and he says that for these conditions, because they're coming from nature and whatnot, then it's the law is also found in

nature as well. And they had different kinds of remedies and stuff that they would use actually, quote unquote, antidepressants and whatnot, that they were using their time to help boost mood and these sorts of things. But anyways, that's one side. But there's a second side. And the second side is something that is very clearly not necessarily by its very clearly linked to an actual issues, either dealing with trauma or loss of a loved one. Or like if you look at the content of their thoughts and their rumination, that purposelessness of life, and the fact that they feel like what's the point of these sorts of things, and it really seems this kind of way of presenting, it really

seems like they're crying out for looking for some purpose looking for some meaning in their life. So these are very different things. And sometimes, what happens is actually sometime this is what's happening, which is that we are pathologizing Coover

as, as as an industry in the West, they are pathologized. What does that mean? What that means is that the pain that a person feels in their heart, because they don't have the bones, right, the bunk that they feel like last month, all our references, and the Qur'an that you feel or experience when you turn away from Allah's remains remembrance, Allah tells us that there are tangible palpable consequences to turning away from his remembrance. And what you're saying is that the industry standard of mental health is basically slapping a pathologized, sort of a diagnosis on it. And then saying, Well, you just got to take this pill, or you got to find a hobby, or you got to start, you

know, dance lessons or something like that. And it'll solve this underlying fundamental existential crisis that you're kind of experiencing that Allah actually created in you to experience in order to propel you to try to figure out why you're here in the first place. So Pamela, beautifully said beautifully said. And that's that is the that is the big issue that we're seeing actually here, when it comes to the issue of mental health. And so as you as you were saying, So,

the way of dealing with this existential angst. You know, one of the criteria for major depressive disorder is nihilism. That's like a crack. So there's basically the way it works to get the diagnosis which by the way, there's a lot of debate as well about the way that mental health is categorized, and the way mental illnesses are categorized and the diagnostic labels in medicine. Every other disease is categorized based on etiology, based on its cause. What causes it, not based on symptoms. We don't like look at a set of symptoms, generally speaking, and say, oh, yeah, you've got Coronavirus, because you've got a headache and a sore throat and fever. No. How do you diagnose

Coronavirus? You actually go and you see there's a cause of Coronavirus and a statue Coronavirus itself, there's a cause of the fluids, influenza A of those A B, there's a cause of a heart attack, quote unquote and myocardial infarction. And there's ways to investigate to actually see the etiology that is causing the disease and causing the symptoms. We don't diagnose a heart attack just based on chest pain, I've got chest pain, it's this no you do further investigation and then you find the cause and say, yep, this is the cause. And so categorization of diseases are based on causes on etiology. But when it comes to mental health, categorization of diseases are not based on

etiology. They're based on symptoms. And the reason is because they actually don't know the etiology. They have different they have different models and different ways of trying to understand what causes it. And this is the thing people and popular kind of mental health people just assume, Oh, yeah, it's biological, did it? No, they don't know why this happens. That's okay. I need to tease out the consequences of what you're saying because that actually never occurred to me before that, you know, they are operating on a paradigm that is purely naturalistic. So they're, you know, they're operating on paradigm that everything has to be caused biologically. And yet they're taking

the causation of a mental illness on complete faith. There's no There's no investigation. There's no tests that's being run. No

On scanning your brain, looking at the different balance of chemicals, this chemical that chemical, this hormone, that hormone your brain say, Oh, yes, not enough of this. Oh, yes, too much of that. No, this is in the wrong place, which would sort of seem to be the end game of a naturalistically rooted mental sort of epidemiology. They're literally just taking it on faith, right? Like, that's very, very, actually. So what you said about shame the brain, technically best practice is to actually investigate but not for mental illness diagnosis, to see whether or not those symptoms are caused by a more medical or you can say, organic cause they call it and blood tested or true mental

illness is that you wouldn't know it wouldn't be out be like, Yeah, that's the interesting thing, right. So they'll be like, Oh, the reason why you're feeling like this is because actually, your ions, really, your vitamin D is really low, or you scan your brain, or you've got this, you know, tumor or something in your brain or, and that's what's changing your personality, or the check your thought, or your thyroid is really low. That's what this is hypothyroidism, it's not depression. So you actually, when a patient comes, you actually rule out all the actual organic causes. And once you've exhausted your list of potential causes, then you say, Okay, you fit the credit. And then you

look at the criteria, who makes these criteria, it's called the Diagnostic Statistical Manual. It's basically a convention of psychiatrists that come together and whatnot. And they basically make the symptoms go forward, they speak about their practice, and look at the statistics and whatnot. And they basically make these criteria on the I wouldn't want to say they're completely arbitrary, obviously, they're not completely arbitrary. But based on, you know, their practice and experience and whatnot, they come up with symptom profiles. And they have these criteria, who came up with these criteria, just human beings, it's not like, it's something like, Oh, 100%, like, and so they

so for depression, there's two ones, that you have to have at least one of them, which is anhedonia, loss of pleasure, and, you know, regular types of activities, and depressed mood. And then there's all these other ones, that you that you that you can see. And if you've been experiencing them for a certain amount of time, months and months, and you've excluded everything else, then you've been given this diagnosis of depression. And as we said, it's not based on etiology, because oftentimes, they don't know the actual biological cause they can't find one. And so this comes to the issue when it comes to naturalism, which is something that they recognize themselves. And by the way, you know,

in the Global Health Initiative of things where people are trying to increase the general health and well being of the world in places of lower socioeconomic status, to have more equitable access to health care, like we have in the West, which is very noble pursuit, there's this idea of global mental health, which is okay, we also have to do this for mental health, but you're actually seeing from within the industry, a lot of postmodern critiques being applied to the mental health industry, which is interesting. It's almost like it's, I could imagine, I mean, it would just be like law and like, you know, development work and aid work, which which all has very substantial critiques about

first world Third World Global North Global South, this is an imposition, because it's not just that the people making these diagnostic criteria are just human beings, that's one aspect. But they all tend to come from a certain place. And then they all they all started to operate within a certain metaphysical paradigm, a certain assumption, a list of assumptions about as we said, Who is the human being? What is real? What is not real? Is there a soul? Are we going to take those into consideration? So if you come to a place that is maybe more traditional, whether it's an Africa and Asia and somewhere else, and they might say, you know, like, oh, yeah, this this happens, like, and

this is from jealousy, or this is from this other sort of spiritual malady, even a sickness of the heart, right? Then they would appear epistemic ly not be able to even consider that as valid, valid knowledge, right? So there's a coloniality of knowledge that's going on, where certain things are legible as knowledge, in fact, and truth, and other things are completely rendered illegible in those sort of paradigms. Yes, exactly, exactly how you put it. And so this is the big issue, because then you're going to enforce kind of this, they, they call it medical imperialism, that you're enforcing your way of looking at mental health, based on your cultural context, and the way you

understand things, because there's recognition of, you're not categorizing, and based on causes, you're just doing symptom profiles, right? And then you're saying, This is what it looks like. And everyone recognizes this, anecdotally, at least many of the psychiatrists I trained with they would say, Look, if you go to see you took a look at something like schizophrenia, which is characterized by a lot of psychotic features, so delusional thinking, auditory hallucinations, and these sorts of things.

And so it was interesting.

One of the psychiatrists I was trading with he basically said that if you look at schizophrenia here in the West, it's very different than you see people coming from Asia.

coming from Africa, and when they come with schizophrenia, what do you mean? He's like here in the West, schizophrenia, a lot of the people very aggressive sometimes is misdiagnosed, because a lot of it has drugs that are kind of put together with it, who's it's a lot more of an aggressive form.

Versus if you look there, he's like, that's true schizophrenia, you see that, because it's not the drugs that are there, they're withdrawn. They're very quiet. They're very to themselves and these sorts of things. So it's interesting, because, of course, culturally, it can manifest in different ways. And sometimes Muslims will take this idea because, as you said,

you know, if you if they go to traditional culture, say, Oh, this is not evil AI, or this is this, this is just depression. It's biological, this is a huge issue. And we should not be saying phrases like this, because this goes against even our way of understanding our own mind, and the things that influence our thoughts and everything like this. So we have to be very careful here. It's not as scientific as many people think it is. This is an attempt. And this is an attempt. I'm not trying to be completely cynical of the mental industry. Here. It's an attempt to try and deal with this epidemic of depression and anxiety. So mostly mood disorders, epidemic of depression and anxiety,

how can we help the people because of course, when you're looking depressed and anxious, it's not good for society, it's not good for the person. It's against their concept of humanism of living well, as well. And so they're doing the best in terms of trying to understand trying to then create programs create therapies, one of the biggest things that disproves naturalism is actually the things that are used to help treat mental illness and particularly mood disorders. So we talked about so people are saying, Oh, it's all just biological. It's all just Bile is a physical phenomenon. One of the things that's really interesting is that I'll never forget one of my

psychology professors, Dr. Davis, his name, for those who haven't went to remaster might be watching this legend, legendary psychology professor. And he is he was very critical of the way that people would claim certainty about things like in reducing mental illness to just biological points. And he used to always say that when it comes to the issue of neurotransmitter imbalance, and whatnot, and the medications that are given to try and correct this imbalance, this is not even the main kind of aspect that has been shown to actually improve symptoms, like if you correct that imbalance, it doesn't even necessarily improve symptoms. And you see a lot of the research that's coming out with

that from a purely biological point of view. And he's saying, which is correct. We don't know why a lot of these drugs work. We're just taking it as you said, on faith, but it works. And we see in the trials, a person's mood is boosted and whatnot. What is the mechanism? They're not sure yet, and I'm sure they'll find a mechanism not saying that there's not. But this is the point about trying to think too much about this is by this all biological and here's the really interesting thing, which is

when a person undergoes therapy, like cognitive behavioral therapy, which is an interesting term, by the way, cognitive behavioral therapy, changing or adjusting your way of thinking or your way of interpreting the world, your beliefs, and your actions. Imam Mohamed salah, right? Like this is this is the active this has meant to be religious activity, right? Adjusting your thoughts and whatnot to make it more aligned with your purpose and your actions as well. So they call it CBT. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Why? When they look at it, that actually changes as well. You neurotransmitter profile and these sorts of things. So how is it that something metaphysical like thoughts? Don't

physical content there, you tell me what a thought is made out of? It's not made it anything is immaterial, it's metaphysical? How is something metaphysical? causing physical changes in your brain? This is the one of the most amazing things that actually disproves naturalism. Because why is any conscious thought affecting your brain? Right? And how is it that your brain is going into a metaphysical, you know, realm, and causing something metaphysical, whereas the interface here between the physical and the metaphysical and mental health becomes an area where actually this becomes very palpable? For a person? If they if they if they notice and pay attention? They should

think? Wait a second, why is this working? Why is therapy changing the neurotransmitter? what not. So this is the point I'm trying to make when we talk about, oh, yeah, it's not that this person just doesn't have their purpose in life or is distant from Allah or anything like this? It's because there's an imbalance in your transmitters. It's like, well, how do you know that it wasn't that the fact that they're distant from Allah, and the fact that they don't know their purpose in life that it caused the neurotransmitter disbalance that has caused these chronic changes in the brain, because it goes both ways. The biology can affect your thoughts, but your thoughts can also affect

your biology, right? Yeah, this is a classic sort of thing that a lot of scientism, and a lot of naturalism falls into. Confusing the answer of how

With the answer of why, right, and so you discover a mechanism, and you claim to have solved the riddle of why something happens, but you really haven't accounted for it holistically, you've just sort of uncovered the mechanism by which it is achieved. Right, and that doesn't do anything, you know, you can simply back up the car, the chain of cause and effect further than that to get into other realms. Right. And that is very, very interesting. So it seems like there's a very deeply hidden contradiction in probably the standard operating procedure or the assumptions of most of the mental health industry. And it's sort of based around this definition of what is the mind and really

the the problem of consciousness, which is something that a lot of people bring up, there's only really, you know, a small percentage of the population that would go full, hard materialist on this issue and say that even your thoughts are simply the sum of individual neurons firing and stuff like that most people intuitively recognize that thought is something that escapes the physical world, even if it has structures or organs that assist it, or facilitate or things like that.

And so what we're seeing here is that we have a whole field of knowledge, and this affects intervention and affects medication and affects, you know, sort of

how people are going to try to help people. And it's only operating both, it's only operating on a naturalistic sort of assumption, even though its own methods, belie that assumption, and demonstrate that there is more to reality than just the physical, natural world. Exactly. And what's really interesting, as well as that, you look at something like mindfulness.

So, before I get there,

as you said, it's very interesting that their methods start to belied this kind of actual epistemological kind of foundation of the way that they, they're very kind of selective and inconsistent. And the way that they understand things, because the push of this field is going beyond naturalism 100%, they're recognizing the need for the social aspect to be adjusted to your environment, your family, therapeutic relationships with different people, they're recognizing all of this. And oftentimes, that's what happens a lot in medicine, which is that medicine advances beyond the science, a lot of the times and the science catches up after, this is what evidence based

medicine really, really means. Which is the idea that we're not going to wait for us to recognize and understand the framework and the mechanism of things. We're gonna go based on the trials and whatnot, this drug works, it works, the outcomes we want occur. That's it, we don't know mechanism, that's fine, the science will catch up. And it usually does. But it's interesting, because in mental health, it's the same push. So they're going in, they're focusing on, you know, evidence based things, what are actually things that are going to boost mood and whatnot. And you find they're moving further and further away from medication focus only. And they're starting to incorporate

other things and the recognition of the need, you know, exercise. And that's something actually that I personally published in, in a few journals, lifestyle types of interventions, things about the gut, brain access, and exercise and prediction I did, I did a literature review, exercise, mild to moderate depression, in terms of the severity, exercise is as effective as an antidepressant.

And you have an CBT, they're all like, equally effective. If you look at actually, they have a pie chart of all the ingredients of successful therapy, there's a very small component, that's the actual therapy, which is interesting. That's actually the minority part. But what's a larger part? Is your relationship with the doctor, the psychologist and the psychiatrist. Your therapeutic relationship is you have trust, is there a sense of, you know, feeling of agent, all these different things that they they put as ingredients of the therapeutic relationship? That's far more important. But it's like, wait a second, if this is all biological, why is this relationship affecting the

actual biological solution, the point we mentioned earlier, but the point I want to say here is that as you're starting to recognize these things, they don't have a mechanism for it. And when it comes to this AI, it's not going to catch up, because it's going to recognize that there is this aspect of a rule that there is something more to human being that just biology, but mindfulness meditation coming from the Buddhist tradition, this has become like almost a mainstay and something that is part of therapy. Now you have apps and all the mental apps, they all include mindfulness. And if you look at mindfulness, it's so interesting, because it has the illusion and the appearance of

something spiritual, like truly spiritual, you know, taking, you know, taking some time away. And the goal of mindfulness it's really in opposition to the Kabbalah because the goal of mindfulness is really this idea of

of making sure that you basically don't with your thoughts you don't try and grab on to them. You don't try and wrestle with them. You don't try and adjust them just basically observe them exactly right, this idea of observation of what your thoughts they could is an active

pursuit. It's an active ritual it's something that is totally different. Mindfulness there is no purpose in life is there there's no purpose to anything you're doing it for what reason the end is mental well being but the Quran Allah, there's a purpose you're thinking about your purpose and thinking about Allah subhanaw taala Allah be liquid Allah, he talks about, you know, globe, it's certainly in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest, but they will never recognize that or say anything in this regard. And this is the thing that's really interesting. Muhammad Asad mentions this. And many of the other kinds of 20th century, early European converts to Islam. They mentioned

this point that basically, the Western Europe has already complex to Islam, which is why they'll never recognize it. And they'll be quicker. And it's interesting prediction, they'll be quicker to adopt Near Eastern traditions, and start to bring that to fill the void of their spiritual death than Islam. And why is that the case, they give different reasons. So Manasa says that, it's because Islam reminds them of their failure, because Islam is so similar to Christianity.

Islam is so similar to Christianity, in terms of its belief system, it has a theology and as a practice, they failed to make Christianity the driving force of their civilization. And they've completely and they said that the only way forward is to remove ourselves from the Abrahamic, Semitic push of the prophetic movement. Islam, on the other hand, has a worldview, it has a theology, it has law, it has ethics, whereas Buddhism and Hinduism has none of that. It just has, you know, the just the meditation aspects of a worldview. There's no theology or anything like this. Yeah, yeah. I mean, so you read my mind, because that was going to be this whole train of thought

was going to be my next question. Because in the beginning, we were talking about how, you know, therapy by following evidence and not waiting around for the, you know, the mechanism, the biological mechanism to be discovered, has gotten

ostensibly at least in optics, more faith based, and they, you know, there's sound theory therapy, and music therapy, and

then this recognition of religion, and now you have therapists that are actually advocating for your own personal religious practice, and then practices like yoga and meditation, etc, etc. I was going to ask the question, though, you covered part of the answer, which is, someone could be tricked, right? A Muslim could be tricked and say, Well, look, there's no contradiction between the mental health industry and my faith, because look, they're actually supporting my practice of Islam. And if you would indulge me to fill on the other half of your answer, I would respond to that by saying, well, but look at the secular power that's being demonstrated by equating your practice of truth

that Allah has revealed, with yoga with meditation, with music with going to a church and praying to acrosser, etc, etc, etc. So, you know, people misunderstand, you know, like secularism and secular power. And obviously, you know, this is my, my hobby horse that I'm always always writing for that.

That, you know, they misunderstand, they expect secular power to look like other types of power that there may be more familiar with, you know, someone coming down really hard and forcing something down your throat, etc, etc. But secular power is much more of a power to categorize, and a power to play referee, right. And so when we said that you're in the therapy room, and you're not allowed to bring certain knowledge is into it, you're not allowed to say, Well, someone gave me the evil eye. And now I'm really bugging out. Right? That that's a location of secular power that gets to say, that is not knowledge. Sorry, you can go believe that, you know, it might have functional benefits,

right? Maybe it gives you a sense of calm to be able to think about things that way. Right. But we can't recognize it as truth. That's one place where secular power shows up. And the other in the in the ability to categorize things and put things into the same cat basically, to put Eman and kofler in the same category. And to say that your genuine preserved you know, religious rights and beliefs and things that are actually objectively pleasing to the creator of the worlds is the same as doing this sort of godless exercise. And we can have an argument and say that maybe in the distant past, there was some practice that was revealed to a prophet that's now lost, and we can Okay good. But

now, what does it mean that people it's not a practice of prayer? It's not a practice of orientation. It's

simply, I do yoga either to look good, or to feel good, I do meditation, not to look good just to feel good, right. And this is the the secular paradigm and the humanist paradigm sort of invading, rearranging these things in different categories, and exerting control over sort of our choices and our whole process. Exactly. And it even comes to the point where a person is doing Islam for therapy. Islam is not for therapy. That's not the point of it. Right? Islam is for us to submit to our Creator. And this is one of the things that sometimes it's amazing, there is definitely, I mean, if you look in our Sharia, there's Hikmah, throughout all of it, from the beliefs, to the practices,

to the laws, to the ethics, everything that's everywhere, because Allah is that Hakeem. And it's something that we are used for fervently, in alignment and others as well. And many of the especially from the humbly school, this idea that there's hikma fee of Allah, Allah and the actions of Allah, and that means in his decisions, and in his commands, there's Hikmah, there's wisdom, there's Rama, there's justice, there's a purpose. And so 100% And I think it's an incredible scholarly endeavor, that many scholars throughout history have gone and they've, they've tried to derive more and more heckum and the wisdoms behind all these different practices you ever hear out

in Medina, but by Milan, a nominal Ghazali you have as well recently Tshabalala Dally, we want you to learn Bala, these works that look to basically draw out the heck out of you know all the things that we do. But it's important for us to understand that that's not why we do them. That is not why we do them. And we do our practices out of submission, a loving, willful surrender to Allah subhanaw taala recognition of our weakness and our vulnerabilities and a trust, a trust, a deep trust and a love in Allah azza wa jal, that's why we do what he tells us to do. Then later on, we discovered the thing it's like, we have to justify to people, oh, you should lower your gaze because it has these

benefits and then your marriage will be better and then you know, you're and then causes your brain to look in different ways. I'm not great, I actually love this line investigation. And if you look at some my work, you know, I'm guilty of this type of stuff as well. But we have to understand that no, it's your the gauge first because Allah said that in the Quran. And then afterwards, you reflect and you say, to kind of what incredible wisdom in this. And so this is an important, Islam is not therapy. Salah is not pure exclusively therapy now. Yes, of course. Islam is therapeutic. Salah is therapeutic. And it is something that is useful in this regard. But it's not just like part of this

bag of Oh, yeah, you can try this yoga. And if you know, maybe a year, you're Muslim, right? Yeah, you can try some vicar and you know, do what you want. No. But when it comes to these things, it's important for us to kind of anchor ourselves and recognize that this is the main way forward when it comes to issues of mental health and feelings of, you know, low self esteem and these sorts of things. And coming back to something, which is again, because I want to emphasize this. And maybe we'll emphasize again at the end, because I don't want anyone to misunderstand us here at all, more than misunderstand me.

Which is, we're not disparaging the mental health, your mental practitioner, the GP, that you're going into your psychiatrists, you're going to even a psychologist at all, that's not what we're doing at all. And as I was saying, oftentimes, because you have all this money and research being put in, a lot of the things are very helpful do help people, especially when they're in real, severe kind of conditions and stuff like this. I mean, there's mood disorders that are mild to moderate, that is probably a lot more relevant to what we're describing, right that mild to moderate anxiety, mild to moderate depression. But there's obviously severe depression, the psychotic depression, the

schizophrenia, there's Mania with bipolar and these sorts of things, very serious, but tough conditions, in which case, you do find these, these do not attend, and they're not as relevant to what we're describing, like mental health is a very broad term, we're really focusing on the majority of mental that we see in the population, which is the mild to moderate depression and anxiety and whatnot. This is what we're talking about the more kind of severe types of mental This is not what we're describing. And it's important, of course, to recognize I'm not we don't want to disparage trust, of course, in people if they're having like a nice psychologist or whatnot, and

they feel like Oh, my God, it's all gone. And all these things. No, no, that's not what we're saying at all. What we're doing is we're critically examining the knowledge structures and foundations of this. And we're showing as, as you said, so eloquently, the secularizing force of the West and how it applies to this as well. And really reflecting on that, you would have purpose, you would have all of the latent benefits, the functional benefits of, you know, et cetera, et cetera, but more important than that, you would be in a submissive and loving relationship.

with your Creator, and you would attain to the highest good, which is paradise in sha Allah, right? So it's, it's, it's really just about trying to save something. So so maybe you can take us through. So what are we talked about epistemic asymmetry and the coloniality of knowledge and things like that. What are some things I know you had some some in mind that are excluded that we would include if we're going to save the mental health industry, and we had our own sort of, truly not just, you know, slap the Islamic mental health label on the front of it. But if we had a truly Islamic mental health, what are some of the things that we would see as being incorporated and included in it that

are systematically excluded right now? Excellent. So we would include the biology part of it. And so when we talk about natural immune reduction, we're not against the idea that there are biological elements in the formulation of a person's mental illness. That's number one, we do recognize the biological element. And this is within our tradition as well. This is not new, this is not Oh, in the 21st century, we become, you know, enlightened about this. This is something that's been recognized within the medical tradition and within mental health in the Islamic tradition. Dr. Monica buttery, the hammer Hello passed away very recently, he, he was part of this project that

discovered this manuscript recently, just like a few decades ago by Abu Zaid and Bulkley, which is basically a diagnostic a DSM, you can say, from the I think he passed away the early third century, if I'm not mistaken, or second century was very early, and was a multi he has categorization of mental illness. And he recognizes the endogenous more biologically rooted depression. And as I mentioned, this webinar came as well and is that my dad also recognizes this. So this is part of the formulation, which is our biology. Sometimes Allah subhanaw taala might create a person with a predisposition to experience more extremes of the emotions to be more neurotic, this is one of the

personality traits as well. And the big five personality neuroticism. And so there is certainly the way in which Allah creates it, there's certainly a biological component to it, and we can observe that. But that doesn't mean that it's the ultimate cause of that. And that's the important point that we're making that distinction. Because what actually can cause metaphysical things, it's, it's strange that something physical can cause something metaphysical. So there's clearly some other things that are there, there's clearly some aspects that we don't fully understand what we don't necessarily fully understand it is a very difficult philosophical problem. The second aspect, of

course, is to recognize the spiritual reality to thinks that we have a root within us. And that's true, what is the life support of this rule? This rule is fed with the Dhikr of Allah, it is quenched its thirst from the fountain of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam through ailment, knowledge, through the crolla, through remembering Allah through connecting with Allah, this is the way that the rule is kept alive, and not, you know, diseased. And of course, the effects of things like jealousy, and arrogance and narcissism in these sorts of things as well on the soul. And the soul has an effect, of course, on these aspects of our mind, in our consciousness, the soul has an

effect on the way that we feel connected with Allah, that we if we feel distant, or when we feel withdrawn, and feel lonely, and these sorts of things. So there is a spiritual element there that is part of this entire picture. And in fact, it is, you can say, the core of it. And this rule is connected in some way to our biology. And this is recognized in our theology, if you look at the discussions of the Westeros between enough's and the rule and the button, many of the elements, they came up with this idea that the rule, when it mixes with the button becomes the knifes and when it is separated from the body, then it is the rule. And so this interesting separation, that there's a

different phenomenon of a of an human experience, that when the soul mixes with the body, that there's an effect in the body and the soul and the body and the soul and the body as well. And it produces what we know today as the human experience with Jehovah and our desires and all these different things, and when our brains. Now, the third thing that I would say is it's part of this, of course, is the social environment as we understand our relationship with others, as Allah Subhana Allah mentions as well, the ram, the womb, is middleman, your Stockman, our mind is actually derived from our mind that allows for the effective Allah's Rama in this world is found in the family. And

so if you're seeking Rama of you seeking healing, that's within relationships that's within family that's within who are within brotherhood. So there's a social element there, of course in this relationship, and speaking to others, and this is recognized within mental health as well. The last thing I'll mention there because others as well, but the last thing that I'll mention, which is very important as well, that I find as well, speakers will go to either extremes on this and people will go to extremes with this as a bit of a controversial thing to say, but the world of angels and demons, the champagne and the gin and the melodica the angels. As a believer, this is like the

second row

Come in the academy man, I meant to be law here. Why am I law equity? This realm is not just a theoretical realm. It interacts with us on a daily basis. The angels and the jinn and the Xiaoping are around us on a daily basis. If you look at the Sunnah of the Prophet SAW Salem, a lot of the car are made to protect ourselves from a lot of the evil effects that can come from this round. The angels are there to protect us in this round. You know, if you say hi to Chrissy before you go to bed, there's an angel that's there in your bed warding off demons that may come to you. What do you think what what kind of effects do you think a demon will have on you? Right or shape on that will

have on you. They're gonna be things that we call today mental health and mental symptoms. No doubt about it. This is something recognized throughout our tradition, even just a bad mood. You wake up sometimes and you have a really bad mood. You saw a bad dream the prophesy said I'm sad that there's three types of dreams. One of that type is something that comes from the shaytaan. Right, exactly. And there's a beautiful form of this the other when we say Oh to be like ministry upon a dream, there are different forms that come from the Sunnah. One of them is interesting because it mentions three things from the shell shape on you say I will demonstrate on a gym in hansy he whenever he he

when necessary from the hands of the shaitan and Allah mentioned this in the Quran, the hummus that is shaping the what is the hands, there are a lot of I mentioned this is the poking and the prodding of the shape on and enough is the blowing of the shape and and enough is like the singing and the music of the shape. Now anyways, I want to focus on this hums aspect here, the hums of the shape on when you look at the definitions, and this is something you find in their classical tradition. They say that the hums is the poking and the prodding of the Shavon that drives the person insane. That drives a person insane. Now, here's the point we're not saying, and here's where people get extreme,

we're not saying all mental health is just shaped shaitan. So all you need to do is just, you know, just focus on the shell theme. We're not saying that. And we're not saying the opposite, which is that this ship has nothing to do with this. Just go to your doctor, and you know, take the tablets around. No, what we're saying is your soul and your body are intricately connected, and they both affect each other. And your soul can affect your body and your body can affect your soul. And the shape fun can come. And perhaps this is interesting from a from a Muslim psychiatrists actually had this thing he called it he was one of those Skype psychiatrists I trained with. He called it the

grain vulnerability hypothesis. He said that, perhaps that there are certain brains that are more vulnerable to the hummus out of the shell pain, that this is the interface for them that they can if ever if a structure genetically a person is of particular way the shaping can affect them a bit more. The prodding and the poking of the shaytaan can lead them to be bit more depressed, can lead them to be more anxious can even lead to psychosis can even lead and he was interesting to say the chronic pain, you know, fibromyalgia and these sorts of chronic pain syndromes. There's actually no biological cause found for this. Oh, the structure is your physical structure is completely normal

in fibromyalgia, but you're in excruciating pain. Where is this pain coming from? Allah Tala alum. But anyways, the idea is that this is a dimension that's there, as it no Tamia said in his time, if you were to lift the veil, you'd find the shell pain are affecting and possessing the majority of people. And this is the point we're not talking. When we talk about gym position, everyone goes and thinks about the extra system like the 70s, that they aren't Shammi I mean, Christian sort of imagination, right? I mean, we have that concept as well, definitely. But when we have an idea of the possession of the shale theme, the vast majority of possession is not like that. It is found in

obtrusive negative thoughts and negative thinking patterns and pessimism in low mood and these sorts of things. This is a portion that a shaitan may have over a person. Now, here's the thing, how do you then produce the therapy and this was the thing that the psychiatrists mentioned is interesting that is not evidence based as anecdotes. So just take this one, I'm saying with a grain of thought, with a grain of thought with a grain of salt.

And so the idea is that you can tackle mental health from two angles, you can do it from the biology aspect, if you change the person's biology, and the brain and whatnot, then perhaps This lessens the effect of the shape on

or you can go and attack it from the shape on aspect. And the best thing to do is together

holistically where you work on any deficits or any vulnerabilities that can be addressed from biological point of view, but also from this spiritual point of view as well. And this is one key message that I want to put for every every Muslim that may be dealing with something. And for the speakers that are out there out there as well, that are trying to spread awareness of this issue of mental health, and it is a big stigma in our population, and they don't seek help for it. And it's something that has existed for a long time. It's not something new. But of course, modern living has exacerbated a lot of the things that make us feel a bit more depressed and whatnot. And there's lots

of different reasons that people may

Given who knows when that's not a topic for this discussion about what lifestyle factors and food and process things and all these sorts of things that may go into modern living that make us a bit more miserable than other people, then people and other times and epochs. But the point is that, you know, we're wanting to basically

recognize and keep to our principles, we don't need to neglect about this idea of your morning and evening of cars part of therapy, you know, you know, the idea of making sure your environment is inviting the angelic presence, what is going to ward off the shell being better than the angels? And so what is your home environment? Like? Is there music blasting? Is there you know, are there pictures all over the walls? No, this is an issue of if it up but for the majority of people in these sorts of things. These are things that repel the angels from coming into your home. Is it messy and dirty? You know, are you smelling offensive and whatnot? These sorts of things? What are

the things that you can adjust to actually invite the angelic presence towards you? This should be part of mental health therapy, because when you look at the reality of it, no doubt the shayateen are a part of it. Because what decision makers want to do you hold the phone to who the shaytaan wants you to fear him. I want as Olia and his allies and his Olia. So anxiety is a goal of the shape on the ship on wants you to feel anxious and fearful. Sugar wants you to feel depressed. And so obviously, this has to be a very important part of things. And it's it's not to say, and so this is the point we cannot as Muslims, secularize your own knowledge. And for some reason, when it comes to

mental health, they have this boundary that they've put forward that cannot be penetrated yet, here's the bubble of that black box here. Yeah, for some reason, if you're sad and anxious, go through this black box. And you know, Islam, you know, is there you know, it has it doesn't have any Jews is a biological problem. This is what we need to really recognize that it's quite possible. This is the poking and prodding of the shape on. And the point is to address all sides, holistic care, right, as they say, and this is something that is very clear from our own tradition, this is speaking with our own principles and our own values is the way that Muslims have understood it. For

many centuries, this idea that there's a biological element that can be then used biological things to treat people. And so it can require medication. And that's not a problem. Even sometimes, to be able to do the spiritual work, a person has sown, lacking that mode of motivation, they need a bit of a boost in their energy so that they can do that spiritual work. And sometimes that can be in the form of a bill, what's the difference between a pill and the things that they would take, you know, from centuries before to boost their mood is saying these things about tobyhanna. And these sorts of things. And people have this idea of like, you know, drugs are bad, because they're, like, manmade

and these sorts of things. Nothing is manmade, in this world, everything Allah Spano has created, men just put things together and mix things up and whatnot, and then package them. You know, like lithium, for example, which is used to treat as the best is the first line therapy to treat bipolar disorder. Where is that? What is the theme lithium is literally dirt that that is what the theme is, right? It's literally found in the soil. It's an element, and it's given as treatment. And so these are things that, you know, we shouldn't be necessarily averse to. But at the same time, we should recognize, of course, the holistic aspect, from when it comes when we look at the spiritual realm as

well. And that's a very strong and I think, a great place to end the conversation, to be honest with you. I think that what we're saying is that truly Islamic health, truly Islamic mental health, not just lip service, but truly, Islamic mental health is truly holistic mental health is that it takes into account the entire reality of human beings of the afterlife of both physical and, you know, non physical causes. And, you know, in addition to having, you know, benefits for our lives in this world, that's only that's small potatoes

compared to the ultimate goal, which is, you know, pleasing our Lord's panel data and trying to get closer to him.

Dr. Sahara, another fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today. Dr. McClaren, Imam Tom, always happy to be here. May Allah bless you and all the work you're doing and may Allah accept it from us. So panicle humbly, humbly, concetto and Lola and I still feel called to be like Saddam when they come after Allah.