Counseling Muslims: Handbook of mental health issues and interventions, Edited by: Sameera Ahmed and Mona M. Amer, New York, NY, Routledge: Taylor and Francis Group, 2012, 396 pp., ISBN: 978-0-415-98860-5

The central role of Islam in the lives of Muslims living in Western countries necessitates culturally sensitive and religiously congruent methods of approaching psychological treatment with this large population. The unique cultural and religious nuances of offering mental health services to Western Muslims is discussed comprehensively in this book, intended as a handbook for all clinicians in contact with Muslims in clinical settings. This is a seminal work that emerges during our post-modern era of positive psychology, interest in multiculturalism and growing diversity in the Western world, rendering this book immensely useful and necessary for the treatment of Muslim patients. It is clear that the authors of this book have set out to emphasize the impact that Muslim cultural and religious beliefs can have on the expression of clinical disorders, while employing a strength-based approach of utilizing the inherent healing properties that exist within the Islamic tradition and Muslim cultures as part of the remedy. Addressing treatment of mental health from this perspective, not only entails cultural sensitivity and awareness, but knowledge of useful methodologies, techniques and modifications in approach that empowers the cultural and spiritual identity in treatment.