Past Courses – Yousuf Raza

Muslim Family Project

Traditional family structures crumbled in the face of modernity. Modern individualism failed the very individuals it tried to rescue. With crumbling families and drowning individuals, our future as a religious community in the West is under threat. What does a healthy family look like in the postmodern world? In the “Muslim Family Project” I bring religious wisdom in conversation with the best of contemporary psychology.

The program consists of two interactive workshops:

1. Parenting American Muslims

This course is designed with the young American Muslim in mind. What are the most pressing challenges that he or she is facing growing up as a Muslim in the US? As young adults, are they adequately prepared to meet the challenges that society has in store for them? The workshop draws from the wisdom of scripture and insights of modern psychology and translates it into a lingo that Gen Z can relate to.

2. Love Actually

This workshop is designed to help you grow through and in your relationships. It seeks to help identify various cultural pathologies, myths, and half-truths regarding love that hinder the growth of your relationships. It looks to empower you with an understanding of what love potentially is, so that you can live it actually. It promises to bring the work of intellectuals, mystics, and poets to your browser without requiring you to delve into technical, esoteric, and abstract writings.

Religion and Psychology

Eighty percent of the American population identifies with some understanding of religion or spirituality. Yet, there is a demonstrable bias against religion in theoretical as well as clinical psychology. There is increasing frustration in the general public about how their religiosity never features in their therapy process.

Understandably various religious psychologies have been developed to respond to this need. However, depending on their understanding of the religion and science conflict, they are at an identitarian risk of devolving into an oxymoron or a tautology. Sadly, there is little to no academic interaction between these different denominational psychologies.

This talk introduces the need for a more nuanced relationship between religion and psychology that does not result in one field enslaving the other.

Logotherapy in Pakistan: Bridging Cultural Values and Modern Psychology for Effective Mental Health Practice

We launched our first ever course on Logotherapy designed specifically for the Pakistani psychiatrists and psychologists in the summer of 2023. This 12-week course offers an introduction to logotherapy in the cultural context of Pakistan and how it can influence the delivery of mental health services.

The course introduces the challenge of cultural appropriation of professional mental health services in Pakistan, providing an overview of Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy as a stepping stone on the theoretical and clinical journey of developing psychotherapy capable of fulfilling indigenous needs.

It is structured around a combination of lectures, readings, discussions, and graded assignments, making it equivalent to a 3-credit hour university course.

In an effort to offer a transformative learning experience, joining cultural competency with the latest mental health treatment techniques, this course was a great success as it brought a diverse group of mental health professionals on a single platform to exchange ideas, learn and grow.

Here’s what our students had to say

I was very skeptical as I came into this course because often such courses can be repetitive or irrelevant. However, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of this course both in its content and its execution. I enjoyed myself immensely and learned a lot.

Rida Hamid

I found this course to be like a breath of fresh air! It gave me the opportunity to connect with like-minded people from the field of psychology and psychiatry who like myself are not so satisfied with the way the mental health field is operating in Pakistan.

Ramla Malik

This course has helped me come across people from different fields of mental health and interact with them. It was very helpful in my personal growth and has also influenced my clinical practice. I have started serious reading on existential psychotherapy and some other authentic work in the field.

Dr. Asma Zarin

It was quite fulfilling. In fact, I've not been this invested in any of my semesters before. The explicit course objectives aside, exploring how critical art, literature, etc. can be in shaping medical and psychiatric practice was a real eye opener. It's helped me find added motivation to read and write more often.

Mian Zain Uddin

This course was a new direction towards psychology and literature that I somehow knew existed but never had the motivation to pursue.

Warda Qazi

This course was a great learning experience that left me with unsatisfied quench to get the concept fully!

Dr. Ambreen Asad

My experience of this course was nothing less than an accomplishment! The environment was extremely homey; something which you don’t feel in the normal courses which are mechanistic in nature! Enthusiastically looking forward to the similar courses in the future in shaa’ Allah.

Qurat ul Ain

Contact us

If you’d be interested to join us in this course, drop us a word at courses@yousufraza.com and we’ll let you know when our course is open again.