Al Balkhi's Interventions for Anxiety and Depression

The eminent scholar, Abu zayd al-Balkhi explained in his manuscript "Sustenance of the Body and Soul" about the treatment for anxiety/phobia and chronic depression/melancholy:

As discussed earlier, the topic of phobia in the texts of al-Razi, Ibn Sina, Thabit ibn Qurrah Al Harrani and Al-Samarqandi was discussed as either a symptom of melancholy or as part of “al-Ra’sha,” body shaking disorder.

Likewise, treatments recommended for phobias were largely different. Al-Balkhi was a proponent of behavioral therapy, while Ibn Sina, al-Samarqandi and other physicians who understood phobia

to be a symptom of melancholy, focused on medications, ointments,

and bloodletting (hijama).

Al-Balkhi’s manuscript can also be analyzed in light of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which emphasizes the importance of beliefs in shaping people’s emotions and reactions to their environments.

Balkhi’s remarkable clinical insight and

tremendous findings with regards to the differentiation between endogenous and reactive depressions.

Huzn, sadness or depression, is of two kinds. The (environmental) causes, for one of them is clearly known,such as the loss of a loved relative, bankruptcy or loss of something the depressed person values greatly. The other type has no known reasons. It is a sudden affliction

of sorrow and distress ghummah , which persists all the time preventing

the afflicted person from physical activity or from showing any happiness or enjoying any of the pleasures. The

patient does not know any clear reasons for his lack of activity and distress. This type of huzn or depression with no known reasons is caused by bodily symptoms such asimpurity of the blood and other changesin it. Its treatment is a physical medical one which aims at purifying the blood.

Thus, for this type of endogenous depression, al-Balkhi clearly

points to physical medical management as the main form of treatment.

He does not recommend cognitive psychotherapy because the patient

may not benefit from it since the underlying etiology is organic.

Extracted from Abu Zayd al-Balkhi's

SUSTENANCE OF THE SOUL: The Cognitive Behavior Therapy Of A Ninth Century Physician, translated by psychology professor Dr.Malik Badri