INTEGRATING SUFI SPIRITUALITY IN SCHOOL COUNSELING: EMOTIONAL REGULATION AND ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH

Indonesian Muslim adolescent mental health faces a critical service-access gap, while Islamic spirituality has rarely been systematically operationalized within school counseling frameworks. This study developed and evaluated the efficacy of a school counseling model integrating Islamic spirituality grounded in the ʿāfiyah framework on adolescent mental health outcomes, while examining the mediating role of emotion regulation. A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was employed, combining a quasi-experimental non-equivalent control group study involving 160 Islamic high school students (80 experimental, 80 control) with subsequent in-depth interviews (n = 15) and focus group discussions with school counselors and Islamic Religious Education teachers. Quantitative findings demonstrated statistically significant reductions in anxiety (d = 1.41) and depression (d = 0.94), alongside substantial increases in psychological well-being (d = 1.13) and emotion regulation (d = 1.31) in the experimental group relative to controls. Mediation analysis revealed that emotion regulation partially mediated 41.7% of the total effect connecting Islamic spiritual practices to mental health improvements. Qualitative synthesis confirmed that Sufi-inspired practices—specifically dhikr, ṣalāt, muḥāsabah, and murāqabah—function as cognitive reappraisal mechanisms and emotional grounding spaces. The ʿāfiyah-based counseling model provides an empirically validated, mechanistic, and culturally resonant transdiagnostic framework for school counseling in Islamic secondary education.