Stress counseling for working mothers: an Islamic approach of five-dilviensional self

Abstract

The literature on women studies shows that women are more prone to stress as compared to men. Moreover, the stress experienced by them tend to originate from unique sources (Noraini, 1994). With the tremendously increasing number of women participation in workforce, there are increasing number of women seeking for stress counseling (Hillman, 1992). While there are various techniques of how to cope with the stress, an integrative and comprehensive approach is needed. Counseling for stress-working mother is a complex process that goes beyond merely prescribing the coping techniques. The complexity of human nature and in specific, the life of working mothers requires an approach that is not only effective at symptomatic level but also at root level. This paper attempts to suggest an Islamic approach for stress counseling. In particular, it proposes a five- dimensional self of human nature as a basis for the counseling techniques. The organization the paper is as follows. The paper begins with introduction and literature review. Then, it discusses the prerequisite of this approach by identifying the nature of the stress, the stressor and the stress reactivity. Next, the five-dimensional self is discussed. The implication of this concept of human nature to counseling and psychotherapy is then described. Finally, this paper provides some case vignettes as illustration of this approach.