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Dr. Ketam Hamdan Combines Western Psychology and Eastern healing concepts to fight stress

BY READERS DIGEST

24th Apr 2022 Wellbeing

Dr. Ketam Hamdan Combines Western Psychology and Eastern healing concepts to fight stress

A rarity in the field of psychology, Dr. Ketam Hamdan is a qualified academic, seasoned therapist who aims to raise awareness around mental health through workshops, presentations, and social media.

Dr. Hamdan helps her clients heal by integrating psychology, brain science, and other aspects of life like leadership and spirituality. Her unique insights have also helped many mental health clinicians learn better treatment techniques for vulnerable clients.

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Fusion of west and east to avoid spiritual bypassing

Dr. Hamdan helps her clients overcome spiritual bypassing. She found that many Muslims tend to turn to their faith to feel better, but over time the spiritual practices are not enough to resolve psychological issues. For example, how can a religious person who prays five times a day, fast throughout the year, reads holy scriptures, and gives religious sermons be addicted to pornography. There is no amount of preaching or religious rituals that are going to solve psychological developmental problems. She works closely with her clients to help them understand how childhood trauma is continually acted out and that they cannot pray their way out of psychological issues.

There is a noticeable difference between Western methodology and Eastern healing concepts. The latter is more mystical and spiritual in its approach, while the former is based on scientific concepts of the human brain and mind. After years of observing clients and taking inspiration from the personal journey of healing through a mix of psychology and spirituality, Dr. Hamdan believes that the two concepts must not be separated during treatment.

She describes her motive for the union of eastern healing concepts and western concepts and says, “I use both western psychology, science and eastern traditions rooted from my Islamic faith to use an approach I call ‘total intelligence therapy.’ This is an approach that integrates different psychology modalities, Islamic wisdom, neuroscience, and leadership ideas. We all have developmental trauma that impacts our life and beliefs about ourselves. Few of us ever learn how to heal our issues. Instead, we act our pain in unhealthy ways or we do what our parents did and that is ‘try to pray ourselves out of it’. It doesn’t work. Most of us live fragmented lives, with spirituality separate from our modern life; work, personal, family, social, health, etc. are all separated. Total intelligence is about learning to heal and connect the intelligence of our mind, body, and soul to live more whole.”

Total intelligence focuses on helping people live a life that is more whole and integrates our EQ (emotional intelligence), PQ (physical intelligence), intelligence (IQ), and spiritual intelligence (SQ). She leverages neuroscience to help make sense of what is happening inside of us and to connect the dots that few of us really understand. For instance, she shows her clients what happens in their brains when they get emotionally triggered and provides them with tools needed to heal. She also shows them what happens to their brain when they meditate and how it is necessary for total wellbeing. She denounces ‘quick fix’ medicinal approaches and has formulated her fusion approach to heal her clients and enable them to live healthier lives.

A Harvard graduate, Dr. Hamdan is known for Ivy League qualifications and her endless efforts to help people. Currently, she founded her private practice Brain Health where she works with high profile executives and professionals on healing. She is also the co-founder of the Mental Health Department at Annisa Hope Center, a non-profit Muslim organization that takes people out of crisis. She also leads and trains other therapists on effective mental health techniques that are culturally sensitive and existential.

As a Muslim therapist in America, Dr. Hamdan is aware of the issues faced by the Muslim community and has spent years raising awareness of mental health within the community. She is passionate about educating people about spiritual bypassing and teaching them how to integrate psychology and spirituality for total well-being and intelligence.

Get a look at her Instagram space @brainhealthdoc and learn to put stress aside in life through her unique healing approach. You can also visit her website www.brainhealthgrowth.com

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