ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the basic foundations of Traditional Islamically Integrated Psychotherapy (TIIP). TIIP is a psychotherapeutic framework that is rooted in an inherently Islamic foundation. Its epistemological foundations are sourced in the Sunni Islamic intellectual and spiritual tradition and offer a reconciliatory holistic approach to the construction of a spiritually integrated psychology that draws from empirical, rational, and revelatory sources. TIIP also draws from the Islamic intellectual heritage in outlining a proposed ontological composition of the human psyche, drives, nature, health, pathology, and its treatment. Psychological interventions arise as a natural consequence of attempting to restore the health of the human psyche (psycho-spiritual equilibrium) through working on the appropriate components of the psyche that are consistent with a TIIP diagnostic formulation. This formulation includes an assessment of the dominant locus of the source of pathology in the primary components of the human psyche that include the nafs (behavioral inclinations), ‘aql (cognition), rūḥ (spirit), or secondary emotional expressions of the primary components (iḥsās). Thus, interventions that target these components can either be (a) inherently Islamic interventions found solely within the Islamic intellectual heritage or (b) Islamic adaptations of mainstream psychologies that are consistent with TIIP principles and goals. The ultimate goal is the nurturance of equilibrium across all components of the human psyche that leads to an integrative whole or unity of being (ittiḥād) that is accompanied by a healthy heart (qalb salīm).
