Poetry Was My First Therapist: Zain Shamoon on Muslim Mental Health, Narratives of Pain, and Showing Up for Your Community There is a version of mental health advocacy that stays safely abstract — statistics, awareness campaigns, the occasional social media post reminding people that therapy exists. And then there is the version that Zain Shamoon has been living for the past two decades: showing up in community, creating spaces where people can be witnessed, and insisting that healing was never supposed to happen in isolation. In a recent episode of the #MuslimPhilanthropy Podcast, AMCF co-founder Muhi Khwaja reconnected with a longtime friend: Zain Shamoon — marriage and family therapist, spoken word artist, co-founder of Narratives of Pain, and a core member of the Institute for Muslim Mental Health. What followed was one of the most honest conversations the podcast has hosted — about stigma, identity, art as healing, and what it actually means to show up for people who are struggling. Growing Up in a Family That Talked About the Things Nobody Talked About Zain grew up in Southeast Michigan, the son of a South Asian man who was, as he put it, “very uniquely” a manager of social services — a role that was rare in the community at the time. While his peers were navigating the ordinary silences of suburban Muslim life, Zain’s household was already talking about divorce, housing, substance use, and mental health. Not because it was comfortable, but because it was necessary. “You don’t even know you’re witnessing it because you’re just a kid playing,” he said. “But that became language. How do you remove people’s barriers?” His brother became a doctor. His sister, a social worker. And Zain became a marriage and family therapist — each of them, in their own way, continuing what their parents modeled. But before any of that, there was poetry. Growing up as a tokenized minority in what he described as a very “Mitt Romney-ish” suburb, Zain found that the mental health system wasn’t built for him. The therapists he encountered didn’t want to talk about his culture or his religion — or worse, they saw those things as impediments rather than sources of meaning. So he found something else. “My first mental health therapist that was culturally sensitive — and I want to emphasize the first that was culturally sensitive — was poetry.” That line landed like a thesis statement for everything that came after. The Private Struggle Behind the Public Performer Zain was a performer long before he was a therapist — doing shows across the Midwest, appearing at conferences and colleges. From the outside, he was thriving. Inside, he was fighting. He opened up about living with intense OCD symptoms, depression, and isolation during his early years. “You can be alone in a crowd of people you don’t feel you trust,” he said. “And so I struggled with that.” It was his sister who finally gave him permission to stop chasing a path that didn’t fit — telling him to take whatever classes he wanted instead of following peers into pre-med or law school. He discovered theater, human development, family therapy coursework. Things came naturally. A personal renaissance began. It was also around this time that he found a therapist willing to actually engage with his culture and religion — and the difference, he said, was everything. “We know that the biggest part of therapy that generates positive outcomes is a strong therapeutic alliance. And you can’t do that without broaching people’s cultural and religious backgrounds.” He says the problem hasn’t gone away. In 2026, too many Muslim clients still arrive at therapy and find providers whose cultural sensitivity is performative at best — anxious about getting it wrong, overcompensating, or simply avoiding the conversation. “It’s not the fault of the client who’s just trying to have a better life.” The Institute for Muslim Mental Health: For the Community, and for the Professionals In graduate school, Zain was drawn into the orbit of Dr. Hamada Talib and Dr. Abbasi — two figures who were quietly building what would become the Institute for Muslim Mental Health. He was twenty years old and already in the room. The Institute, which traces its roots to the Journal of Muslim Mental Health founded in 2006, operates on two parallel tracks. The first is community education — programs on ADHD, depression, domestic violence, autism, suicide prevention, and grief, designed for any Muslim who wants to understand these issues better. No professional credentials required. The second track is professional development for Muslim mental health practitioners themselves — the social workers, counselors, therapists, and psychiatrists who often find themselves isolated in their fields, waiting for an annual conference to feel like they’re not alone in caring about this work. The Institute has been building the ...
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