The Muslim Mental Health Initiative Sabahaath Latifi on Bringing Islamically Integrated Psychotherapy to Northwestern University By Fardeem Munir
The Muslim Mental Health Initiative (MMHI) was founded in 2019 with the intention of providing an inclusive mental health resource to the Northwestern community and its Muslim students. Recently, MMHI has partnered with Khalil Center Chicago and CAPS to offer “Let’s Talk” hours with Sabahaath Latifi, a Muslim licensed therapist. Sabahaath completed her undergraduate studies in speech-language pathology and quickly discovered her love for working with people. Through a series of personal life events, she realized the importance of mental health and completed her graduate studies in Clinical Psychology. During her internship, she discovered the Khalil Center and has been working with them ever since. We sat down with Sabahaath to discuss Islamically integrated psychotherapy, specific mental health issues she observes in the Muslim community, and how to best break news of your escapades to your parents. TLDR: if you go skydiving without telling your parents, the best time to tell them is right before you jump out of the plane. “Hey mom, I’m skydiving right now. Okay bye!” As some people would say, “ask for forgiveness, not for permission. :)” This interview has been edited for length and clarity A lot of people are fundamentally opposed to the idea of therapy. In their mind, they cannot piece together why talking to someone about a problem will solve that issue. Do you have any particular stories that push back against that narrative? That is the common myth about therapy: that you just go talk and things change for you. That is never, ever true. Therapy is way more than that. Here’s something I see a lot: I get older clients and they’ve been living life for a very long time in a certain way that tends to follow the mantra, “Don’t deal with your problems.” “Anxiety? No, sometimes I get overwhelmed and I deal with it and I move on and I’m fine.” And yet, as they say, these things, they will also say “I feel my heart racing. I sweat, I get nervous” and still end with saying “but I’m fine.” And then we start talking. We’re not just talking for the sake of talking, but rather to explore where this person is coming from. What’s their background? What’s their experience? Who are they? They’re individuals with very rich histories and experiences that have shaped the way that they see the world and deal with problems. And I want to understand that. Of course, we also work on the skills and the techniques to deal with the [issue]. And while we’re doing this exploratory work, we’re also doing lifestyle building. So we talk about nutrition, physical activity, sleep hygiene and spiritual health. We talk about relationships and how they deal with conflict: communication, assertiveness, self-advocacy –- we do all that. Now, maybe something new happens in their life while they’re in therapy. I see the way that they handle that new conflict or that new situation – they’re very much within an awareness of self compassion, recognizing the way that they can communicate or the way that they can handle it. And it looks totally different. It’s healthy, it’s balanced. And they’re able to take on the conflict without it taking them over.
Sabahaath Latifi. Photo via Khalil Center
posed to do. When that is taken care of, we build an alliance, we create an understanding of what therapy can be, and then we challenge the feeling of being stuck. Because whenever we feel stuck, it’s a feeling; it’s not a fact. Feelings are never fact. So you feel stuck because you feel like you don’t have choices. But, we always have choices. The choices can be difficult. They can be painful. In fact, they can cause other kinds of conflict — but they exist. And, so, some people, when you challenge them, they recognize that, “you know what, for me, my parents are a priority, nothing else surpasses that. It’s my job to fulfill this,” and they do it with that intention. Do I think that’s the healthiest way to go about it? No, but who am I? If that’s something that the person realizes is their priority, then that’s important. That’s the thing that we want to work with. Nobody gets to judge them for those choices. Now most of the time, what ends up happening is the person realizes they are really following this path out of fear that their parents won’t accept them, or concern over the fights that may happen at home if they say, “Hey, I don’t want to do this.” That’s the reason that they’re just pushing through. Then, they realize that they can actually advocate for their needs and be assertive. Yes, it’s gonna come with conflict, and yes, it’s going to come with a lot of “fun” emotional blackmail statements and things like that. There are extreme cases, but for the average [parents], if you tell them you don’t want to do it, what are they really going to do? Lots of emotional blackmail. Sure. Lots of yelling. And yes, it sucks to have to go through that. I’m not minimizing having to hear that. Trust me, it’s painful. But after that, what happens? Are they going to really put a gun to your head and force you to sit in on classes? No. The average parent won’t do that. They’re going to be like, “Oh man, okay, fine.” “Whatever, this kid, what a disappointment, time to move on.” And then you move on with your life and you build your career and they realize, “wait, he or she is doing perfectly fine.” Life moved on. So, when you can give the person the tools that they might need to feel secure enough, or as secure as you can possibly feel to face that, they do face it. And I’ve seen people come out on the other end, and I’ve seen them be happier – and because they’re happier, they’re able to deal with whatever things their parents might be throwing at them. Once again, I want to emphasize, I can never speak for every experience, but generally speaking, these parents really just want their kids to be happy. Unfortunately, they believe that happiness is only defined by what they think is happiness. And when they can see that their child is still happy after they choose a different path, they tend to come around and accept that. So it’s really important to recognize that your parents aren’t your enemies. They’re just trying to do what’s best for you. Unfortunately, the efforts are well intentioned, but harmful, and you push through all of that. There is the other end to it, and it’s really great. There’s a lot of happiness and contentment waiting for you there. A lot of people are in situations where they are practically living a double life and then they realize that they want to stop, but that involves having a difficult conversation with either their parents or someone else. What would you advise to those in that situation?
What are some of the issues you see come up with Muslim college students? You mentioned that a common issue you see is students having to study a subject for their parents sake and not because they’re interested in it.
This idea of having honest, assertive conversations with your parents is the most foreign idea in our community. I don’t think there’s any way to do it without damage or without things blowing up. I really do believe it’s about going through it. It’s like having a car stuck in the mud, right? You can’t sit inside the car, all clean and pretty and just rev your car out. No, you got to get in the mud, get dirty, get gross, put in a lot of effort to push that. That’s kinda what you gotta do here. You gotta go through it. You can’t just drive around it or figure it out. You’re going through it. You’re pulling your car out. You’re getting messy. So, I wish I had a pretty answer for you on that. I just don’t.
So we do see that often and the feeling that generally comes up is, “I feel stuck.” First of all, there is no easy answer to that. Whenever somebody comes to me, I challenge that feeling a lot — obviously, after building a relationship and creating a safe space for them and doing everything we’re sup-
--Sabaahath Latifi is available for consultation hours for the academic year. You can drop in for sessions every Monday at the MCC. You can book a time with her at https://bit.ly/nu-teletalk.
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