The structure and content of this book is based on the first draft of my thesis proposal that was inspired by my first attempt to do a PhD on the topic of “Mental Health in the United Arab Emirates” in 2009 when I applied to the School of Psychology, Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University in Australia. A degree that I have not completed due to external circumstances and personal choices that took me towards different career paths and educational endeavors. My captivation with the topic of Mental Health goes back to when I was thirteen years old and had decided at the time that I wanted to be a Clinical Psychologist when I grow up. Coming from a multi-ethnic background as the son of a German father and an Emirati mother, allowed me to cultivate a unique perspective about what drives individualism and the uniqueness of one’s character. At the time, I was fascinated with that sponge between our ears that makes us tick, the “brain”! I further became interested in the writings of Sigmund Freud and through him; I became interested in mental illness from a psychoanalytic perspective. I was not, at the time, able to differentiate between Neurology, Psychiatry and Psychology although I tend to believe that I have always been a clinician at heart.
