Successes with Islamic counseling and psychotherapy

Abstract

Are counseling and psychotherapy one or two different fields? The original title of this paper proposed to me by the organizers of this Seminar was "Successes with Islamic counseling". I have added "and psychotherapy" because of the recent developments and interactions between these two specialization. In talking about Western counseling and psychotherapy we are in fact talking about one specialization. The 'no man's land' between the boundaries of counseling as a specialty of educators and psychologists who offer guidance to normal people and students with mild emotional and academic problems , mainly practiced in educational institutions, and that of psychotherapy as the profession of experts in clinical psychology and psychoanalysis, mainly practicing in clinics and hospitals, has already been so much constricted that many modern references treat them as one subject. Modern textbooks on counseling psychology have chapters on therapeutic relationships based on psychoanalytic, behavioral, cognitive, group therapy and other topics which were previously the sole domain of clinical psychology and psychotherapy. On the other hand, one will find areas like career development and client centered and other humanistic therapies in clinical psychology books which were once the 'property' of counseling psychology.