A Phenomenological Approach to Counselors’ Viewpoint Towards Islamic Counseling Centers

Counseling is one of the most important issues in our religious culture that has been addressed since the beginning of Islam and is mentioned in the Holy Quran and the words of the infallible. The main purpose of this phenomenological study was to investigate counselors viewpoint towards Islamic counseling centers.

In order to understand the life experiences of the clients, a qualitative research method was adopted with a phenomenological approach. The study population consisted of all counselors of Islamic counseling centers in city of Qom. For the purpose of sampling the counselors, several Islamic counseling centers were purposefully selected. Sampling continued until the theoretical saturation of the data was reached. Finally, 11 counselors were selected and semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data.

The data analysis was done through open coding and axial coding and resulted in 10 themes or categories from 89 open codings. The main themes included: 1) the sources of Islamic approach, 2) a different view of human foundations in Islamic psychology, 3) having a paradigm or worldview, 4) adapting the treatment approach to the client’s culture, 5) strategies to promote Islamic psychology, 6) the potential limitations of Islamic psychology approach, 7) main techniques in applying Islamic approach, 8) differences between the Islamic psychology and the Western approaches, 9) areas of effectiveness of Islamic psychology, and 10) today’s position of Islamic counseling centers.

Overall, based on the analysis of feedbacks, and despite different perspectives, it can be said that Islamic counseling approach has a positive and significant role in the process of counseling for clients.