While mental health discussions are so whitewashed, is it any wonder many Muslims still turn to exorcisms?

Each year, Mental Health Awareness Week gains more attention in the media – and rightly so. Though while discussions of mental health are necessary and important, it is disheartening that, even in 2019, mental health stories in the media often focus on white-centric narratives.

As a Muslim, I been working to raise awareness and understanding of mental health in my community, where levels of depression, anxiety disorders and PTSD are increasing. Things are changing, as a new generation comes of age and culturally-sensitive therapists emerge. But as long as the mental health industry – and the media around it – are predominantly white and culturally normative, I fear that many Muslims will still prefer exorcisms to cognitive therapy.

This problem is much bigger than Muslims – almost since its inception, mental health and the psychiatry from which it emerged has been an elitist, white and male discipline. This is much more dangerous in mental health than it is in treating physical pain because unless a therapist understands, appreciates and respects the cultural baggage of a client, they will get sicker, not better.

Being Muslim is increasingly a mental health risk factor, so it is essential that young Muslims know how and when to seek help.

A generation of Muslims in Britain have grown up in an environment of Islamophobia, racism and the constant expectation that they must apologise for tragic events around the world that have nothing to do with them.

And many Muslims, specially those who are visibly so like veiled women, report a constant low-level fear of being physically attacked in public. This isn’t just them being paranoid – Muslims are the victims of most hate crime in the UK. This constant “hyper-vigilance” is a common symptom of PTSD.

Parts of the media are certainly to blame. We have seen in recent days, through the Jeremy Kyle scandal, how negative media exposure for those unprepared for it can lead to depression and suicide. Muslims are given the Jeremy Kyle treatment every time there is a terrorist attack.

All this would put pressure on anyone, but specially someone who – like many Muslims – isn’t completely sure whether mental health practitioners understand their culture and religion, or even whether their religion permits it.

Millennial Muslims take their mental health seriously and want to get professional help that works for them. Tragically, they’re caught between therapists who can’t understand their lives and spirituality, and religious leaders who view everything as a dichotomy of belief and apostasy – with mental illness being associated with the latter.

I’ve been campaigning to encourage members of my community to openly discuss these issues, including an online documentary series On The Level where we spoke to Muslims affected by suicide, child sexual abuse and drug addiction. And I’ve also been working to bring both of the groups we depend on – the Sheikhs and the psychiatrists – closer together.

Just as mental health practitioners must be challenged on whether they are understanding and accommodating Muslim beliefs and not forcing a one-size-fits-all approach on a very diverse society, Muslim faith leaders need to explain why they have all-too-often advised mentally ill people to just pray, visit a holy man, or even undergo an Islamic exorcism.

To start with, let’s exorcise psychiatry's assumptions that every client's thoughts, behaviours and values must be identical to their textbook’s authors.

Salim Kassam is a community activist and co-founder of TheMuslimVibe.com