Behavioral (Nafsānī) psychotherapy: Character development and reformation

This chapter provides a Traditional Islamically Integrated Psychotherapy (TIIP) conceptualization of working on the nafs or behavioral inclinations. Islamic discourses outlining the various discussions of the Islamic spiritual scholars on the competing drives and categories of the nafs are examined. In general, the nafs contains both predatory and appetitive drives. In its primitive state it inclines towards temporal pleasures and needs to be trained in order to develop the capacity to delay gratification and to progress to the stage of iṭm’inān or tranquility. Acentral TIIP principle of mukhālafah or opposing its maladaptive primitive drives is utilized in order to habituate it to incline toward that which is adaptive and consistent with the dictates of the rational self (‘aql). Various approaches to training the nafs are provided as demonstrations of practical interventional tools that can be utilized by a TIIP practitioner. The Six M’s model is outlined as a modality of reaching optimal behavioral goals identified by the practitioner and the patient. The Six M’s are derived from the Islamic spiritual literature dealing with behavioral modification and they are: (1) mushāraṭah or goal-setting, (2) murāqabah or self-monitoring, (3) muḥāsabah or self-evaluation, (4) mu‘āqabah or consequences, (5) mu‘ātabah or self-reprimand, and (6) mujāhadah or exertion. Finally, a case illustration of the Six M’s as applied to a case of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) with religious scrupulosity (waswasa) is provided. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)