On Baha'i-Inspired Psychotherapy: Calling Upon the Transcendent Nature of the Human Spirit

Photo: Dr. Michael L. Penn

There are many helping professions. I happen to work in one of them. My field is mental health, early childhood the area I focus in.

I don't usually use the term "psychotherapy." Psychotherapist isn't my preferred appellation; counselor will do. I am a counselor who works with children and their families, a consultant to Head Start and Early Head Start staff and parents, as well as a Baha'i.

Given my background I deeply appreciate the perspective offered by Michael Penn in his closing to a presentation he did for the Baha'i Association for Mental Health Professionals in 1999, available on line from the BAMHP website. It provides wonderful inspiration for the therapist working with adults or older youth and succinct guidance when the client is also a Baha'i. It is my view that the Faith offers as great a resource to the mental health professional as any formal academic training he or she may have acquired. We psychotherapists /therapists /counselors /consultants /trainers /coaches
who work in mental health and are Baha'is have the opportunity to put one foot in our profession and the other in the Garden of Ridvan. What a blessing that is!

In their work, Bahá’í psychotherapists will want to call upon the transcendent nature and power of the human spirit. This is best realized by invocation of archetypal stories of triumph over hardship; the sharing of holy odes, meditations and prayers; the well-timed recitation of mystic sayings, and of poetry verse. The “Conference of the Birds,” the “Seven Valleys and Four Valleys,” the mystic poetry of Rumi and others -- as well as music and songs -- can all play a vital role in the therapeutic process. When working with members of the Bahá’í community, it would seem important to ascertain the extent to which the spiritual practices prescribed by Bahá'u'lláh are being discharged. Inasmuch as these teachings provide the metaphysical ground for human happiness and development, they can be neglected by Bahá’ís only at great personal and interpersonal cost.

As Bahá’í-inspired psychotherapists, we undertake our practice, not so much in the interest of techniques, methods or “schools,” but in the practical interest of understanding and growth. The goals of a Bahá’í-inspired approach to psychotherapy may be understood as hermeneutical, pedagogical and emancipatory. The hermeneutic goal is advanced when we are able to read with another his or her history in a way that endows the present and past with enriched meaning. Armed with the unique insights provided in the Bahá’í writings, and free of that prostletizing and moralizing spirit which has no place in psychotherapy, there are moments when we can be to our clients as an “eye to past ages…and as a light unto the darkness of the times" (Shoghi Effendi, ADJ, p. 79). Enriched by a deeper understanding of the interplay between hardship, crises and development, many of our clients will leave our care with new perspectives on the past, and with renewed courage for the challenges that lie ahead.

Michael L. Penn, Ph.D. & Sara Clarke, "Reflections on the Metaphysical Dimensions of Psychotherapy," Association of Bahá’í Mental Health Professional’s Annual Conference
November 19-22, 1999