Category talk:Sufi psychology

Category purpose
This category is not intended to subsume the many, many subjects that fall under the broad, catch all category of Sufi Psychology but rather for subjects that have a definite or major thread or genre of "traditional sufi psychology" or "sufism and psychology/psychiatry/psychotherapy" running through them, such as:

Sufi Psychology article itself; Arthur J. Deikman; Robert Frager; Al-Ghazali‎; Hazrat Inayat Khan; Vilayat Inayat Khan; Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee; Lataif-e-sitta‎; Javad Nurbakhsh; Robert E. Ornstein; Idries Shah, and a small selection of appropriate books by Idries Shah and others. Esowteric (talk) 09:29, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Sufi psychology (article)
The Sufi psychology article itself could be widened in scope. It's presently restricted to the seven nafs, qalb and ruh; and the six lataif. Esowteric (talk) 17:34, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Doris Lessing
I don't think there's sufficient appropriate material in Doris Lessing's works to merit inclusion in this category. Ideas welcome, Esowteric (talk) 09:49, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Fazal Inayat-Khan
Also unsure about Fazal Inayat-Khan a Sufi teacher, psychotherapist and early promoter of Neuro Linguistic Programming. The article states: "Financial constraints led him to earn a living in publishing and psychotherapy" and doesn't indicate how the interest in psychotherapy and NLP was worked into his Sufi programmes, if at all. Esowteric (talk) 10:18, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * AJRG writes on the FIK discussion page: "The simple answer is yes, but beware simple answers... and  provide some context." Esowteric (talk) 08:06, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Javad Nurbakhsh
Javad Nurbakhsh, a Sufi and psychiatrist, wrote the book The Psychology of Sufism (1992) and the two part article What is Sufism? Sufism and Psychoanalysis, Part 1 and Sufism and Psychoanalysis, Part 2, published in The International Journal of Social Psychiatry, Vol. 24, Nº 3. Esowteric (talk) 20:59, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Article already tagged for lack of citations; have tagged that article as in need of extensive copyediting and made a few first attempts at the odd citation, reorganization and cleanup. Esowteric (talk) 08:52, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I found that much of the article prior to my cleanup had been copied verbatim from uncited, primary, copyrighted material from the Sufi Order's web site. Have removed that content, leaving holes in the information, but better than having to nominate the article for deletion. See the article's talk page. Esowteric (talk) 19:14, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Ibn Bajjah
Ibn Bajja published the psychological masterpiece, The Knowledge of the Self. See here. He also wrote the essay Recognition of the Active Intelligence. Esowteric (talk) 18:16, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Spiritual healing?
Organizations such as the International Sufi Movement carry out "spiritual healing". Does this warrant inclusion in "Sufi psychology"?

Maybe we need something along the lines of "Members receive training in spiritual healing and integrate this into their personal and professional wellness counselling" (this example applies to the Sufi Healing Order), rather than simply prayer being carried out? Esowteric (talk) 15:46, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

A.H. Almass re-categorization
I notice that Otto4711 removed the category Sufi psychology from the A. H. Almaas article. Sorry, but I've re-added it.

As it says in the article, "The curriculum of the work draws upon the founders' backgrounds in Sufism". See mentions of Sufism and lataif in the article, and these plus nafs and "higher self" in his writings. These are concepts belonging to the practice of Sufi psychology. Thanks,  Esowteric + Talk  11:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC)