A paper by Sabnum Dharamsi and Stephen Maynard presented at Durham University,
Spirituality, Theology and Mental Health: Myth, Authority and Healing Power
ABSTRACT
Current research suggests that it is the quality of the therapeutic relationship, irrespective of the model, which most impacts clinical outcome in counselling. This paper looks at how spirituality can enhance the quality of the therapeutic relationship, with particular reference to the Islamic framework of self and soul, where self (nafs) is seen as earthly, the path to light, and soul the light of the divine within.
There is a body of research that indicates that the primary factor for success in therapy is the client themselves but also the quality of the relationship.
“Contemporary research, however, has demonstrated that the use of techniques and treatments play only a supporting role to the other common factors with the client being the primary source of therapeutic change. Given these research conclusions, Wampold (2008) argues that (i) an important common factor is the practitioner’s use of a coherent, bona fide theoretical framework in the provision of a coherent treatment and that (ii) the potency of that treatment is dependent on the extent to which it is congruent with the client’s cultural framework, belief system and the explanation s/he currently holds of her/his distress.”
Crouch, A: Introduction to the contemporary research that informs the CPCAB model of practitioner development and proficiency (2010) CPCAB
Though this indicates some understanding of the interactive nature of the client / counsellor relationship, the concept of ‘the client’ is set within apparently rigid parameters, such as gender, culture, sexual orientation, age, socio-economic and employment status. Though this research continues to talk of inferred characteristics which are mutable, in this paper we would like to suggest that at a profound level, the nature of the client, that of the counselor and hence that of the therapeutic relationship, is based on the oscillating relationship between self and soul. In other words, what is it that really gives the client strength? What is it that truly makes the relationship work?
Here I hope to share some of our experience from counselling within an Islamic framework. In doing so I hope that this may contribute to this dialogue as well as introduce certain aspects of Islamic Counselling.
Islamic Counselling is a therapeutic mode of intervention based on Islamic teachings. The core teachings within this are the Qur’an and sunna, or way of The Prophet, and the science of tessaouf, which is concerned with ‘the inward journey towards God”. Though Islam is often identified as a religion, it describes itself as din – i.e the entire life transaction – due to the covenant made by the Creator to His creation, humanity. What happened as described in the Quran is that God gathered all the souls together beyond space-time, and said Am I not your Lord’ and the souls answered, yes. Meaning that in the greater context all souls are aligned with knowledge of and the will of God.
Lordship in Islam is one of the most significant divine attributes. The word Rabb has within it the meaning of bringing to one’s full potential, hence all of human development, including evolutionary, bio-physiological, psycho-social and personal development, is held within this greater divine context. Indeed, the word for development is terrbiyyah, sometimes roughly translated as education.
Islamic Counselling sits within this greater context of terbbiyah and the life transaction or din of Islam. It’s a contemporary response that has much in common with other therapeutic modalities but is based on an Islamic understanding of the nature of human beings.
Contemporary developments in tessaouf (Haeri and Haeri) have brought greater clarity to the nature of the relationship between the self and soul. The soul or ruh is something, which by its nature we know little about. However, the ruh is that aspect of us which is divine – pure consciousness. It cannot be owned but its qualities are the attributes of God – pure light, pure love, pure beauty, absolute justice, and so on. Its realm is infinite, beyond space and time but in the moment of our physical being, it is the divine spark through which the self exists.
The soul is entity the self is identity
Haeri, F Witnessing Perfection 2009 O Books
The soul is pure consciousness, and the self the I or you is conditioned consciousness and relative. The self in Islam is called the nafs, and it is the nafs that can and must change in the process of terrbiyyah. Islamic counselling provides a method to facilitate this process.
The relationship between the soul and the self is compound. The self can’t help but worship those qualities of the soul and want to possess them, but paradoxically it never can contain the absoluteness of the divine qualities. The more that the human being recognises its true nature, soul and self, the greater its harmony with divine will.
The following case study is provided to indicate the significance of this with regards to the client, counsellor and therapeutic relationship
Iman is a bright young woman who’s recently completed her law degree. Her parents, sister and brother emigrated from a poor background in Gujerat and are also barristers. They are well known in the legal field for their work per se as well as in assisting the Muslim community and beyond.
Iman comes to counselling after having some kind of ‘breakdown’. She’s been called to the bar..but within two weeks found herself unable to continue and very distraught. There are a number of themes she’s working through in her sessions; inability to believe in and reconcile with the legal system, self doubt, a love / hate relationship with her family who she describes as cruel and violent with everyone else in the family except her. She has found religion to be a source of support as well as throwing up continual questions. She is tortured by her inability to protect vulnerable members of her family as well as feeling she is being wasteful of all the resources and privileges she’s had. She doesn’t know what to do with herself or her life and has been avoiding people more and more to escape the questions she’s being asked.
She has already been in therapy but wanted to come to a spiritual counsellor – she feels she’s gone round in circles working through family issues and got nowhere – she feels she can live with the family stuff – what she wants is to function and work out what to do with her life quickly.
What becomes clear through the sessions is that her self is in turmoil, and she begins to realise she can’t just ‘do’, and that all of these aspects of her life are interconnected. Through the counselling relationship, she begins to see patterns; how she wants her family’s love but also to punish her parents for their failures, and to punish herself for being loved for not fitting in, and for being self-indulgent.
In this Iman is conflicted; in Islamic Counselling this conflict is seen as an almost inevitable result of the paradox of self and soul, through which she must grow in order for herself to continue in its process of development. She desires her family’s love because they are her family, and they continue to nurture and love her. She sees her drive and love of serving others in them. They before there was anything else, represented in Iman’s growth, all that she could look up too. This desire for her parents’ love finds itself in conflict with her understanding of justice and insight into their apparent cruelty. How can the people she loves and holds in such high esteem, betray the perfect qualities she attributed to them? Her inability to resolve this question not only raises issues regarding her parent’s integrity, but also in relation to herself. She therefore becomes increasingly tortured by her feelings that she is being self-indulgent, that she is using resources of money and intelligence to no apparent end, in an unjust situation that she cannot justify.
There is a hierarchy within the divine qualities. As mentioned earlier, lordship is one of the highest qualities, as is justice. One could say a lot more about this hierarchy, but for now, suffice to say, that though we can see within her struggle other aspirations for love, integrity and the power to act, at this point, justice is key. By acknowledging her feelings and reflecting back her situation, the client is seeing aspects of her self – her conditioned consciousness. This part of the process is painful, but real – telling her story and having it witnessed by another. But also, my role as an Islamic counsellor is to see that with this client what manifests strongly is her longing for justice – a passioned and painful cry to try to right the world’s wrongs with her own being. Doing this is consuming her. Her soul knows absolute justice, and her self longs for it but is incapable because it is limited and relative. Through being witnessed as both self and soul, abolute and relative in the counselling process, she comes to a realisation that her aspirations of herself are inappropriate. What she gets from me is help to see her story in a close but different light. This has integrity and a congruence for her, and is almost immediately transformative. She tells me ‘this is really helping me’, and I can see this confirmed in her body language, and the way she begins to feel hopeful. Gradually she starts to see what she can and can’t do, to accept it, and to begin the journey of moving on.
As the counsellor, there are resonances for me within the client experience. As a composite of self and soul, the truth of justice is also written upon my soul. My alliance with her is real, and although – or perhaps because – we are separate beings, we unite in unspoken worship of Al Adl, the source of all Justice. In Islamic Counselling, empathy has a very special place because achieving it reflects an increasing alignment with TAUHID, singularity, unity or oneness ie God. To let go of one’s own projections and agendas to step into someone’s world is an act of willing disidentification with one’s self or conditioned consciousness, and in doing that the state of the counsellor’s conditioned consciousness is expanded and brought into greater alignment with the soul or pure consciousness. The act of turning away from the self facilitates its development, or as simply said in an Islamic tradition, in serving we are served. What makes this at all possible is TAUHID, the oneness that is god. With my client, I practice openness to her agenda, and openness to the divine in her and me, openness to grace that is beyond me. I intentionally put myself in a space where I can put my agenda aside. Often I do this with a silent fatiha, the opening sura of the Qur’an, meaning ‘the opening’ and ‘victory’. As she discusses her situation many feelings come up for me. I feel like I want to right the wrongs that she experiences; wanting to fix. I feel angry that she seems incapable of letting go of what is clearly not her fault. And I feel frustrated by the apparent waste of her education and training. I’m vulnerable to her. This vulnerability is not wrong; rather it is my self, my conditioned consciousness. It is the combination of this conditioned consciousness and my soul that enables me to engage sensitively, but also, as I experience these feelings and as I hear my client’s guilt and blame and inability, I practice letting go of all of them, I practice presence, and take a step into the beyond. It is here that I feel her energy, hear her passion and love. The theme of justice becomes apparent. In the Quran, God says
“Some people say the Prophet is only a listener; but no, he is a listener of good for you” The Quran
meaning that the prophet heard not only the dialogues of head and heart ie self, but also the soul.
So as the two of us intertwine in this relationship, ourselves real for the moments they exist in relation to each other, but also, through working on and through the self, tasting alignment with the soul, which is life, presence. The relationship is a moving energetic field where the barriers and boundaries between her and I are both very separate and boundaried, but also fused in oneness.
I’d like to conclude with a poem by Rumi, called the Guest House, translated by Coleman Barks.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
~ Rumi ~