Throughout historical past, human psychology has held a central place within the subject of medication. The most good minds have devoted themselves to exploring its intricacies, motivated by the only goal of unraveling the enigmas of what continues to be probably the most intricate side of human beings and their essence. For centuries, this pursuit has persevered, pushed by the insatiable quest to grasp the complexities of the human thoughts and its profound influence on humanity as an entire.
Rania Awaad, a senior psychiatrist from Stanford University within the U.S., is on an identical journey, simply with a barely totally different goal: difficult what she calls the Eurocentric narrative of psychology perpetuated all through fashionable historical past.
That has introduced her to Türkiye, the place Awaad and her group are retracing the historical past of psychological well being care at historic establishments often known as “darüş-şifa,” lots of which date again centuries to the Ottoman or Seljuk eras.
“This concept is very important because these are institutions that are part of, and inspired by, Islamic tradition,” Awaad, a medical affiliate professor of psychiatry on the Stanford University School of Medicine, instructed Anadolu Agency (AA).
“They weren’t just merely hospitals. They were also institutions of healing.”
The motive why she determined to concentrate on these establishments is due to their holistic strategy to all “senses of human beings,” defined the 42-year-old Cairo-born American, who’s the director of the Stanford Muslim Mental Health and Islamic Psychology Lab.
She additionally runs a non-profit group referred to as Maristan, which she mentioned is an idea just like the darüş-şifa.
“Also the concept of healing the soul, the nefs, which is something kind of missing, I would say, in modern psychology today,” she mentioned, referring to the Arabic phrase utilized in Islam’s holy e-book Quran, which additionally interprets because the self or one’s true self.
Origins of the idea
Awaad mentioned she is engaged on a e-book exploring “what was the concept that inspired these healing institutions and specifically how they heal mental illness.”
Her e-book is predicted to be printed subsequent yr by outstanding publishing home Routledge.
According to Awaad, darüş-şifa led to a significant shift in psychological well being care.
“Hospitals, prior to the Islamic civilizations, may have had people who are mentally ill in them,” she mentioned.
“But once you have the Islamic civilization come, there’s a real emphasis on … the preservation of the intellect, preserving the aqel (intellect in Arabic), and so there was a strong emphasis on making sure that those who were ill were treated.”
Awaad was in Türkiye’s northwestern Edirne province final yr to go to a darüş-şifa that had been become a museum centered on the historical past of well being care.
That impressed her to take a street journey by means of Türkiye together with her group this yr, which she has additionally been sharing together with her over 126,000 followers on Instagram.
“We started in Bursa … (and) ended up in Kayseri, which was very beautiful, very helpful to see what happened to the darüş-şifa. From there, we could go to Sivas, then to Amasya,” she mentioned.
Awaad and her group visited darüş-şifa in Istanbul final Friday, a few of that are open to the general public, whereas they obtained particular permission for the others.
‘Integrated sense of healing’
The darüş-şifas had an strategy to therapeutic that took all facets under consideration, from clear consuming to medication and contemporary air, all of which was to “heal the soul completely,” in accordance with Awaad.
One of probably the most thrilling issues we discovered was “this very integrated sense of healing,” she mentioned.
“They were using water therapy in most of these darüş-şifas, not just the fountain, but the concept of the kind of sound you would hear from the water. They were treating them in the water for healing and the hamam that was usually attached to it,” she mentioned.
“Also sound therapy, using the ‘makam,’ or the tones. If somebody were very depressed, they would play a tone that would bring them up. If somebody were very anxious, they would play a tone that would calm them down. This is a beautiful concept of integrating all the different senses of healing.”
From her travels in Türkiye, Awaad mentioned she got here to grasp that “a lot of these darüş-şifas actually continued to be used as hospitals until the early 1900s,” opposite to the earlier analysis she got here throughout.
Other researchers purported that “they were neglected and modern medicine was replacing them, but actually, we found it being used even in parallel with modern medicine,” she defined.
Awaad mentioned the historical past of psychology is written from a really Eurocentric view.
“It essentially says a lot of psychology started in Europe, and all of the writing or discoveries of mental illnesses were by Europeans,” she mentioned.
“But actually, some of the research I myself have done … and other the publications have shown that so many of these diseases or illnesses like … OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) … was a millennium before the Europeans,” she added.
In the U.S., she mentioned, many individuals really feel “disconnected from psychology today.”
“The Islamic civilization had a beautiful healing heritage,” mentioned Awaad.
“You see this in the beauty of darüş-şifas and it needs to be brought back to heal people around us. This is my interest in changing the narrative or rewriting the narrative of psychology, and I’m also making it relatable for Muslims around us.”
Source: www.dailysabah.com
