Islamic psychology — nafs and spiritual wellbeing

Islamic psychology centers on the nafs — the self or soul — and its progressive levels of development from the commanding self driven by impulse through the self-blaming conscience toward the nafs al-muṭmainnah, the tranquil soul at peace with God. This developmental model is a sophisticated map of psychological and spiritual maturation that parallels the Sutras' account of citta moving through its veils toward clarity. Treatment of mental distress in this tradition attends simultaneously to the spiritual, the psychological, and the communal.