Al balkhi biography

Psychophysiology and psychosomatic medicine [ edit ]. Depression [ edit ]. Phobias [ edit ]. OCD [ edit ]. Managing fear [ edit ]. Knowledge of the cause [ edit ]. Exposure therapy [ edit ]. Core emotions [ edit ]. Sexual attributes [ edit ]. Politics [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. Journal of Affective Disorders.

Sources [ edit ]. External links [ edit ]. Geography and cartography in the medieval Islamic world. Geography Ptolemy. Islamic medicine. Bukhtishu Ja'ar al-Sadiq. Al-Khurasani al-Shirazi. Ophthalmology Psychology. As of today, it is still defined in a similar manner as to what was described by al-Balkhi. Al-Balkhi details the disorder as an extreme type of fear that results in the anxiety levels of a person spiking due to increasing the depth of blood in the body.

This causes the person to become shaky and disoriented, preventing them from making decisions in a timely manner. Rather than taking medicine or proceeding with blood letting, which were common methods to help an individual, he suggested gradual exposure to the object or situation that caused the fear.

Al balkhi biography

This technique was known as reyadat al-nafs. He advocates 'forcing oneself to repeatedly expose one's hearing and sight to noxious things' and to 'moved again and again near the thing it is scared of until it becomes used to it and loses its fear. While the topic of sex is more widely discussed today, al-Balkhi explored the subject in detail, specifically various sexual attributes and the affects that they have on an individual.

A specific talking point that he mentioned in his work was the act of remaining abstinent. By doing so, an individual subjects themself to physical ailments, since the act is deemed by him to be "unnatural". Abu Zayd al-Balkhi was the first to differentiate between neurosis and psychosis, and the first to classify neurotic disorders and pioneer cognitive therapy in order to treat each of these classified disorders.

He classified neurosis into four emotional disorders: fear and anxiety, anger and aggression, sadness and depression, and obsession. He further classified three types of depression: normal depression or sadness huzn , endogenous depression originating from within the body, and reactive clinical depression originating from outside the body.

He also wrote that a healthy individual should always keep healthy thoughts and feelings in his mind in the case of unexpected emotional outbursts in the same way drugs and First Aid medicine are kept nearby for unexpected physical emergencies. He stated that a balance between the mind and body is required for good health and that an imbalance between the two can cause sickness.

Commenting on this, he wrote,. This recognition, which is also later discussed in the works of Persian physician Haly Abbas, did not enter the consciousness of western psychologists until Freud began exploring the idea nearly a millennium later. Crucially, Al-Balkhi argues that even if the cause of obsessive thoughts is the devil, the symptoms should be fought by cognitive strategies.

These thoughts prevent enjoying life, and performing daily activities. They affect concentration and interfere with ability to carry out different tasks. From differentiating between types of depression, to acknowledging the inheritability of proneness to obsessive thinking, Al-Balkhi proves himself to have had an impressively discerning eye for the psychological.

Readers of the text will readily note Al-Balkhi strikes a balance between the spiritual and the material that might be said to be uncharacteristic of the time; rather than explaining everything through words such as devil, jinns and sins, he relies instead on psychological language to explain psychological phenomena, without completely disregarding the unseen.