By: Dr. Alborz Bahador, Clinical psychologist, Researcher and practitioner
This article is the first in a series of scholarly investigations into the state of mental health and medical resources in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The series aims to dissect how Iran’s mental health infrastructure, access to care, and societal well-being have been systematically eroded under decades of corruption, mismanagement, and repression. Iran is facing a mental health crisis of staggering proportions. One in four Iranians is currently affected by a diagnosable mental disorder [1]. Yet even these figures underestimate the depth of the crisis, because so many suffer in silence, uncounted and untreated. Behind these statistics lies a much darker truth: Iran’s health system, once among the most robust in the Middle East, has collapsed under the weight of an authoritarian regime more interested in survival and enrichment than in serving its people. Read More