Message about Planned Transition of President Hamada Altalib, DO, MPH, FAES

July 2, 2024

Dear Members of the Institute for Muslim Mental Health: Last week, President Hamada Altalib, DO, MPH, FAES announced that he is stepping down as president of the Institute for Muslim Mental Health (IMMH). After serving in this role for eight years, President Altalib has decided to continue with IMMH as part of the advisory board…

Suicide Postvention – Crisis Response Summary

September 1, 2023

Suicide is a human condition. As such, Muslims are not immune to mental health challenges, mental illness, and suicidal ideation. The Institute for Muslim Mental Health coordinated and hosted an emergency Meet the Expert Pro-Series webinar on Thursday, April 8th 2021 in response to a mental health crisis in the Muslim community. The Pro-series webinars are geared towards Muslim mental health practitioners and community faith leaders. This article summarizes the key learning points of Dr. Rania Awaad’s webinar presentation. 

Muslim Mental Health Conference March 25th-26th, 2022

March 10, 2022

Join us in-person or on Zoom, and reconnect with the Muslim mental health professional community!

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Categories

Exploring the Darkness: Self-Harm and Drug Use in Muslim Youth

September 1, 2019

Stigma surrounding mental health is something that every community deals with, even in this current day and age. These stigmas are even more pronounced in traditional religious communities where mental illness gets chalked up to supernatural entities. As a result, many individuals in Muslim communities, especially the youth, do not get the attention they need in order to properly and safely tackle mental health issues. Two issues that are relevant in the lives of many Muslim youth today are self-harm and substance abuse. These two issues, already a serious global health and medical problem affecting people of many backgrounds, are highly stigmatized within Muslim populations. This leads to a lack of self-reporting and subsequently, a lack of treatment for those harming themselves physically or through repeated drug use.

Behind Closed Doors: Porn and Young Muslims

May 1, 2019

There is a lack of education and available resources for addressing sexuality with young Muslims in an age-appropriate manner and through an Islamic lens. This becomes worrisome when students are opted out of sex-education classes at school with no alternative education at home or in Islamic institutions. Muslim parents are not fully equipped to have the ‘birds and the bees’ talk with their children and this becomes problematic when curiosity outside the classroom leads to the dark web.

Spiritual Bypassing

April 1, 2019

“For 15 years, I thought I had the happiest marriage. I believed I was one of the lucky ones, but then I found out he was having an affair. It devastated me! It was like waking up to a nightmare from a fairy tale…I know Allah tests those he loves, but I couldn’t handle it.”