Skip to main content

Boston Muslims Open New Mental Health Clinic

A new Muslim mental health clinic opened its doors in Boston, Massachusetts last week, aiming to focus on stigma within the Muslim refugee and immigrant communities, The Bay State Banner reported.

Pharmacists Abdifatah Ahmed and Mohamed Abdullahi started the new Community Caring Clinic, a behavioral health clinic, after noticing a huge need for professional help.

“When I saw that, I said this is what is needed in the Muslim community,” Abdullahi said.

He added that Muslim families struggle with shame, language barriers, and cultural stigma.

“Right now we are dealing with a lot of mothers and youth,” he says.

“They need somebody who understands their culture. Somebody who breaks the barriers and the stigma on mental health.”

Mayor Martin Walsh, city officials, and community members attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Both Abdullahi and Ahmed said they experienced trauma after leaving their homes in Somalia to become refugees in foreign countries.

“We want to bring something different from the regular mental health clinic, which is a holistic approach,” Abdullahi said.

He added, “We want to appreciate the holistic approach, with spirituality.

“We are dealing with organizations that can train our providers to be aware of this spiritual side of the person to whom they’re giving therapy.”

Mental Health

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), depressive disorders are the fourth leading cause of ill health and disability amongst adults worldwide.

By 2020, mental health disorders are expected will represent the world’s largest health problem.

Many Muslims are reluctant to seek out mental health professionals because of the stigma attached to mental illness. Another reason is because they fear that a Western-trained therapist will not understand their culture or religion.

Countering stigma related to mental health, an Islamic center in Raleigh, North Carolina, started offering specialized service in January 2018.

Earlier in 2016, a group of Ottawa Muslim mental health workers held a conference to help those suffering in silence.

The post Boston Muslims Open New Mental Health Clinic appeared first on About Islam.



source https://aboutislam.net/muslim-issues/n-america/boston-muslims-open-mental-health-clinic/
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

List of Times and Places Where Dua is Accepted

A short reminder regarding the recommended times of dua . And I think what you need to know here is that the recommended times of dua or recommended things that can cause your dua to be accepted, can be divided into two sort of large groups: Am I Good Enough to Make Dua for Myself? Situations where your dua is accepted. Times where your dua is accepted So I’m going to very briefly mention them one after the other as much as possible. As for situations where your dua has been accepted: – The person who has been wronged or oppressed . – A person who finds themselves in severe difficulty after a calamity has struck. – The person who is traveling. – Someone who is fasting. – The one who is reciting the Quran or has just recited the Quran – Someone who is performing Hajj or Umrah or jihad. – The one who is making dua for someone in their absence . Because we know that when you make dua for someone in his absence an angel says: “ Ameen and to you”. – A person...
Post a Comment
Read More »

Ghuraba (The Strangers): Nasheed with English Subtitles

Islam began as something strange, and it shall return to being something strange, so give glad tidings the strangers. (Sahih Muslim 145) This famous nasheed has many versions; this one is from Muhammad al-Salman and has the subtitles in English embedded. [We are] strangers and we do not bow the foreheads to anyone besides Allah  […] Transliteration to help in the pronounciation:  Ghurabaa’ wa li ghairillaahi laa nahnil jibaa Aisha Stacey  wrote in an article for Aboutislam.net : “I think that many of you would agree that being Muslim in the 21st century makes you well acquainted with being strange. It might even be a metaphor for random, as in you have been randomly selected. […] many converts to Islam will tell you about feeling as if they were strangers, before finding Islam. They will speak of feeling that they belonged somewhere else that their lives were just slightly off center. They often speak about a vague sense of knowing they were not like everyone else...
Post a Comment
Read More »

Taqwa – Living the Main Purpose of Ramadan

Taqwa is a major purpose for the month of Ramadan. The people of taqwa are those who do the things that they are commanded and avoid the things which Allah has made prohibitive. And evidently, to reach a state of taqwa requires vigilance, it requires patience and sincerity. The verse is pertaining to fasting I found in a single set of verses in chapter 2 starting at verse 183: O you who have believed, decreed upon you is fasting as it was decreed upon those before you that you may become righteous. ( 2:183 ) A Collective Act of Worship Allah is telling us that fasting has been made obligatory and then Allah tells us that just as it was prescribed for those before us. We often get asked this question in Ramadan, “how’s the fast going for us?” And if we gave ourselves a moment to think about it, we see that Allah Most High has made the fast inside the month of Ramadan easy for us because we know that there is a collective spirit to fasting; we know that we’re not alone in this ...
Post a Comment
Read More »