The influence of the Islamic psycho-spiritual therapy on muslim adolescent drug addicts

Abstract

This study attempts to explore Islamic psycho-spirituality and its influence in a recovery process of drug addiction among Muslim adolescents in Java Indonesia. It is undertaken in the context of the spirituality approach from various scholars to revitalize the recovery system, especially in the light of Muslim contemporary scholars. Hence, firstly, the study tries to find evidence from case studies of former drug addicts who are undergoing the treatment in rehabilitation centres to uncover the characteristics of psycho-spirituality. Then, the study establishes how Islamic psycho-spirituality helps the recovery process of addiction. Secondly, the study explores the dimensions of Islamic psycho-spiritual concepts of therapy i.e. transcendental (tauheed), ritual (ibadah), intellectual, and social (akhlak) in the recovery process of addiction by indicating how they are represented in various conditions of addicts. And lastly, the study explores the suggestions and recommendations to strengthen the Islamic psycho-spiritual therapy approach. In short, this study illustiates the essentials of Islamic foundation as the ‘basic’ framework of Islamic psycho-spiritual therapy concepts in the recovery process of addiction at rehabilitation centre. To give direction of the study, a conceptual framework is developed based on the understanding of the influence of Islamic psycho-spirituality, drug addiction problems and its treatment. A total of twenty-seven semi constructed interview questions reflecting the four research questions were formulated to use in face-to-face in-depth interview among the ten Muslim adolescent former drug addicts after informed consents were obtained. Three respective therapists consented to be interviewed separately for data triangulation. Content analysis was used as analytic technique to process and interpret data for the ten participants. Findings in this study yielded four themes that contribute to the rehabilitation process of addiction, namely reflective feeling, expression attitude, insight awareness and enlightment image. As the findings were revealed in this study, the conceptual framework was also revised.