Zoroastrianism: Clinical and Literary Applications

The goals of Zoroastrian life and mental health treatment are identical. They both endorse the concept of virtuous life to bring harmony and balance to the totality of a person in collaborative partnership with animals, plants, and the four basic elements, namely air, water, earth, and sun/fire. The total person integrates one’s physical, personal, interpersonal, social, and spiritual capacities into a single and well-integrated person. Respect for everyone’s individual beliefs, preferences, and characteristics should be universal. The goals of the individuals, groups, and nations should be chosen with respect for their differences, which can be a source of elevation for the humanity. Zoroastrian religion has established practical guidelines for a virtuous life by following rightness, truth, justice for all, light, and thoughtful kindness, which enriches the relationship between humans, animals, and basic elements which provides us with a celestial habitat. It teaches us about the formidable adversary who ceaselessly promotes illness, different types of mental tortures, disability, and death and a gloomy future for our environment. The forces of negation enter the mental health treatment as barriers in the form of resistance, defensiveness, and lack of motivation for a better life based on pessimism about treatment outcome (Sholevar P. Psychoanalytic family therapy. In: Sholevar GP (ed) Textbook of family and couples therapy. APPI Press, Washington, DC, 2005; Sholevar P. Psychoanalytic case studies. International Universities Press, Madison, 1991).