Representations of Psychological Distress among Canadian Muslims of South Asian Origin: A Qualitative Study Using the Self-Regulatory Model
[Thesis]
Yusuf, Humair
Moodley, Roy
University of Toronto (Canada)
2019
312 p.
Ed.D.
University of Toronto (Canada)
2019
This study sought to gain insight into representations of distress among Canadian Muslims of South Asian origin. It sought to examine whether representations of distress among this population are influenced by Islamic, scientific, and Western representations, the extent to which they differ from those assumed in the prevailing literature on Islamic healing, counselling, psychotherapy, and psychiatry with Muslim populations, and whether individuals attempt to incorporate multiple influences into a single coherent representation, or they construct multiple representations simultaneously. The Self-Regulatory Model of Illness Representation (Leventhal, Brissette & Leventhal, 2003) was utilized to understand how the participants made sense of, emotionally responded to, and coped with their experiences of distress. The findings of this study indicated that a common theme among the participants was the belief that their distress was a form of punishment from God due to lack of faith or piety, thereby suggesting a significant religious aspect to their representations of distress. Paradoxically, the participants attempted to cope with their distress through counselling and psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy, which implies an equally strong biomedical aspect to their representations of distress. Reasons for this dual and possibly contradictory nature of participants' representations of distress are discussed along with the implications of the findings for counselling and psychotherapy.