Welcome to the course

Welcome to the course ‘Understanding Muslim Mental Health’.

This course draws on contemporary expertise and scholarship from the interdisciplinary field of Muslim Mental Health, with content from the fields of Psychiatry, Psychology, Islamic Psychology, Sociology, Religious Studies, and Theology. Our expert contributors include academics, scholars, practitioners, and, importantly, people with lived experience of mental health problems.

Throughout the course, we include first-hand case studies and examples from practitioners who do this important work on a day-to-day basis, including Muslim and non-Muslim health and social care professionals who work for the NHS or third-sector organisations, and religious practitioners who provide faith-based support (Imams). Video content brings to life the realities of mental health support practice and Muslim experiences of mental health, supplemented by written articles for important contextual and conceptual information.

You will be aware that the field of mental health is inhabited by a diverse range of practitioners – from social workers to mental health nurses, chaplains to NHS psychiatrists, from youth workers to police officers – this diversity is mirrored in the range of contributors to course content and, sometimes the language they use to describe mental health problems and the people who experience them. Whist ‘mental health problems’ and ‘people with mental health problems’ are our preferred terms, you will appreciate that we could not stop our contributors from slipping into terms they are most familiar with! So, you may hear references to ‘mental illness’ or ‘clients’ and ‘service-users’ and other terminology used. In a step that follows, we address some of the debates around terminology in the field of mental health.

You, and your fellow learners, will be from a range of professional backgrounds, who all work within their own professional guidelines, and in some cases statutory, or legal, requirements. Please consider the good practice guidance presented in the course in line with your own professional and organisational guidelines, perhaps raise any contradictions or similarities as a point for discussion where appropriate – another learner may have some helpful tips for you!

Full references for any statistics or research findings we report will be included towards the end of each step. Do take a closer look at this additional material if you would like to find out more about the topics covered. Where possible, we have tried to include open-access resources in our references.

We hope you enjoy the course.

Over to you

We’d love to hear more about you, your background and your motivations for taking this course. You can introduce yourself in the comments section below.