Mental and emotional health education for addiction prevention: Islamic perspective

Abstract

Background: Addiction is a word derived from a Latin “addictio” meaning ‘enslaved,’ that described the neurological model of chronic and relapsing brain-disease. Addiction affects at least 10% of any population addicted to drugs or alcohol.

Objectives: To identify the qualitative themes of Islamic spirituality of God-consciousness in Freud’s psychodynamics theory of mind, Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, Cognitive Triangle tools and Modal process of coping with stress.

Methods: The paper reviewed and explored literatures on the science and theology of addiction prevention from the frontiers of Islamic perspective. The Islamic models of spirituality blends several western psychological approaches. It also attempts to establish the processes of epigenesis and neuroplasticity programmed in Islamic model of spirituality, integrated education, cognitive learning, moral development and resilience in coping with stress, how it modulates the principles of God-consciousness in activating the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC), and in the emancipation of the ‘enslaved’ brain reward circuit from mental and ‘emotional highjack.’

Results: The review utilised the four default characteristics of human beings that motivates the addiction process to illustrate the background causal phenomenon. It bring forth the Islamic psychology approach and principles that integrates the psychodynamic theory, Kolhberg moral development theory, the cognitive triad approach to understanding the diseases’ of the mind and the modal emotion-regulation approaches to suggest several tools that will be helpful in addiction prevention interventions.

Conclusion: The paper identify both the theme of experimental and experiential data relating Islamic spirituality of God-consciousness in integrated education, educational psychology, educational moral development, psychotherapy of cognitive triangle, and stress coping strategies as significant models that will predict the prevention and intervention of addiction behavior.

Keywords: God-consciousness, Belief, Epigenesis, Neuroplasticity and Resilience.