Al-Razi's and Avicenna's psychiatry and lovesickness

Domain XVI · Historical, discredited & harmful · Abu Bakr al-Razi, Ibn Sina · 900 · Persia

What it is

This is a historical tradition, not a therapy to practise. Two Persian physician-philosophers of the medieval Islamic world are its anchors. Abu Bakr al-Razi (Rhazes, 10th century) wrote a book of "spiritual physick" in which reason is God's greatest gift and should govern the passions, never be…

Format

• 10th century: al-Razi's Spiritual Physick, twenty chapters running from the excellence of reason and the suppression of passion, through carnal love, conceit, envy, anger, lying, miserliness, anxiety, grief, greed, drunkenness, sexual intercourse, earning and rank, to the virtuous life and the fear…

Evidence status, as the guide reports it

• Working phase: evidence-informed work on preoccupation, loss and meaning, with heritage material used only where the client wants it.

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Does it involve fasting, a special diet or 'detox'? Have you discussed this with your doctor?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• intellectualising instead of feeling. Working when the client recognises the cycle as it happens.
• sexual or relationship abuse disclosures; follow safeguarding routes. Working when shame decreases.
• romanticising the past or dismissing it. Working when listeners can tell history from current care.
• health anxiety; any suggestion the pulse can diagnose love. Working when bodily signals feel less frightening.
• the client hearing "your passion is a moral failing"; shame. Working when the client uses the frame on their own.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.