Our Research . Our Vision . Our Approach . Our Impact
Maryam Tree Center Mission
Maryam Tree Center advances psychological research focused on understanding strained family dynamics, stressed caregiving roles, and psychological well-being across the lifespan, with specific attention to how institutional structures shape these outcomes. Grounded in Islamic psychology and contemporary psychological science, the Center examines how depression, anxiety, trauma-related symptoms, and psychological distress are shaped by conditions such as access to healthcare, food insecurity, exposure to incarceration, and unmet basic needs at the individual, community, and family level.
Guided by principles of justice, responsibility, and human dignity, the Center prioritizes rigorous inquiry, mental health literacy, and research dissemination that deepen understanding of how chronic stress and structural strain contribute to mental health disorders and psychological impairment, with particular attention to incarcerated individuals and communities affected by gaps in healthcare and institutional support. Through this work, the Center generates knowledge that informs relational stability, institutional practice, and ethically grounded approaches to psychological well-being, including how policies, procedures, and resource allocation within key systems shape risk and protection across the life course.
Our Research
Research at Maryam Tree Center is grounded in psychological science and Islamic psychology, with a central focus on how family systems, relational dynamics, and institutional structures shape psychological well-being across the lifespan. Our research agenda examines psychological functioning within families, individuals, and communities while attending closely to the social, material, and systemic conditions that influence mental health outcomes, including the ways institutional processes define access to care, continuity of support, and exposure to chronic stressors.
The Center’s research prioritizes the study of individual, community, and family stability, caregiving stress, emotional regulation, and relational functioning as they intersect with healthcare access, food insecurity, incarceration, and institutional practices. We examine how unmet basic needs, chronic stressors, and system-level barriers affect psychological processes such as trauma response, resilience, identity formation, and interpersonal functioning, and how institutional decision-making can intensify or reduce these developmental risks.
A core area of inquiry explores the integration of Islamic psychology with contemporary empirical research to deepen understanding of the human self (nafs), emotional regulation, moral development, and psychological resilience. This work draws on Qur’anic concepts and classical Islamic scholarship alongside established psychological theories and methods, contributing faith-informed perspectives to broader scholarly discourse while maintaining methodological rigor and ensuring that institutional context is treated as a central determinant of psychological experience rather than a peripheral background factor.
Maryam Tree Center employs interdisciplinary and community-engaged research methods to ensure that findings reflect lived experience and real-world conditions. Research initiatives are conducted in collaboration with academic partners, community organizations, and healthcare-adjacent institutions, with particular attention to Muslim communities and other historically marginalized populations that remain underrepresented in psychological research and that are often disproportionately affected by institutional gaps in care and support.
Findings generated through this work are disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, research briefs, institutional reports, and evidence-informed resources. By translating research into accessible and decision-relevant knowledge, the Center seeks to inform scholarship, institutional practice, and policy conversations related to family well-being, psychological health, and systemic reform, including reforms to institutional procedures that shape mental health risk and recovery.
Our Vision
Maryam Tree Center envisions a future in which psychological research meaningfully informs how individuals, families, communities, and institutions understand and support psychological well-being, with institutional structures treated as a primary context shaping developmental pathways. This vision is grounded in the recognition that family systems and relational functioning are foundational to individual, community, and societal health, particularly in contexts marked by structural disruption and institutional barriers to stable support.
Guided by Islamic psychology and contemporary psychological science, we envision a field in which individual, family life, caregiving structures, and intergenerational well-being are studied in direct relation to the systems that shape daily living. This includes healthcare, mental health, educational, food, and justice systems, whose structures, policies, and operational practices significantly influence psychological outcomes for families affected by poverty, illness, and incarceration. Within this vision, the experiences of incarcerated individuals and their families are understood as central to broader discussions of family stability, psychological distress, and long-term well-being, including how institutional conditions during incarceration and reentry shape emotional functioning, identity development, and relational repair.
We look toward a future in which mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being are examined as interconnected dimensions of human life through rigorous, research-informed inquiry rather than isolated or exclusively individual models. Through this vision, the Center for Psychology & Society seeks to contribute to psychological scholarship that strengthens families, informs institutional understanding, and advances ethically grounded approaches to well-being, with particular attention to Muslim communities and other historically marginalized populations navigating institutional inequities and service fragmentation.
Our Approach
Maryam Tree Center advances its mission through a structured, research-driven approach grounded in Islamic psychology and contemporary psychological science. Our work focuses on understanding psychological well-being within families and communities through applied research, knowledge translation, and sustained collaboration with academic, institutional, and community partners, with deliberate emphasis on how institutional structures shape exposure to stress, access to resources, and the conditions that support recovery.
The Center recognizes that psychological health and family stability are shaped not only by individual and relational dynamics, but also by material conditions and the broader systems in which families live. Our approach integrates developmental psychology with the study of food insecurity, caregiving stress, incarceration and reentry, access to healthcare and mental health services, and institutional practices within healthcare, educational, and justice systems that influence psychological outcomes. Through this work, Maryam Tree Center examines how system-level gaps and disruptions affect families across the life course, with particular attention to Muslim communities and other historically marginalized populations, and to the institutional pathways through which inequities become chronic psychological strain.
Programs and Research
Foundational Framework: Islamic Psychology
Islamic psychology serves as a foundational framework for Maryam Tree Center's work. Psychological well-being is understood as a multidimensional process shaped by moral, spiritual, social, and environmental factors, including the institutional environments that structure daily life and determine access to stability and support. Drawing on classical and contemporary Islamic thought, the Center examines concepts of the human self (nafs), heart (qalb), and intellect (‘aql) alongside modern psychological theory to inform research on emotional regulation, trauma, moral development, and family functioning in contexts where institutional conditions can either protect dignity or intensify strain.
The Center’s scholarship engages the intellectual contributions of scholars such as Ibn Sina, Ibn Arabi, and Ibn al-Qayyim alongside contemporary empirical research, contributing to scholarly dialogue on how Islamic psychology can inform psychological science, family well-being research, and institutional understanding of mental health, particularly where system design and institutional practices shape lived experience.
Mental Health and Institutional Research Hubs
The Center develops research initiatives focused on the psychological well-being of individuals, families, and communities, as well as the institutional and structural factors that shape mental health outcomes. These research hubs function as collaborative spaces for data collection, analysis, and scholarly inquiry in partnership with universities, healthcare-adjacent institutions, community organizations, and interdisciplinary researchers, with attention to how institutional processes influence prevention, access, continuity, and outcomes.
Research areas include caregiving stress, family functioning, food insecurity, incarceration-related family disruption, access to mental health resources, and the ways healthcare, educational, and justice systems influence psychological outcomes, including how institutional procedures and resource pathways shape family stability and psychological distress over time.
Family Hunger and Psychological Well-Being Initiative
Maryam Tree Center addresses hunger and food insecurity as critical psychological and family well-being issues that are strongly shaped by structural and institutional conditions. Food insecurity places sustained stress on caregivers, disrupts family roles, affects child development, and contributes to anxiety, depression, emotional dysregulation, and long-term psychological strain, often intensified by gaps in institutional support and access pathways.
This initiative focuses on investigating and publishing on the psychological effects of hunger on individuals and families, including parental stress, caregiving capacity, child emotional development, and overall well-being, while examining how institutional systems influence food access, service navigation, and the continuity of support. Findings are translated into peer-reviewed manuscripts, research briefs, and institutional reports to inform policy, scholarship, and system-level responses.
Correctional and Family Impact Research
The Center conducts research initiatives examining the psychological and relational effects of incarceration on individuals, communities, and families, with particular attention to how institutional structures, correctional practices, and gaps in healthcare and mental health access shape outcomes before, during, and after incarceration. This work recognizes incarceration not as an isolated individual experience, but as a family- and systems-level disruption that produces long-term psychological strain, instability, and unmet health needs, often amplified by institutional discontinuity and fragmented support systems.
Current research priorities focus on the intersection of incarceration with family separation, caregiving burden, food insecurity, housing instability, and barriers to healthcare continuity. Incarcerated individuals frequently experience limited access to comprehensive mental health care, preventive services, and trauma-informed support, while their families often shoulder the psychological and material consequences without adequate institutional assistance. These gaps contribute to elevated rates of anxiety, depression, chronic stress, and relational breakdown both during incarceration and throughout the reentry process, with institutional constraints shaping the timing, quality, and coordination of care.
The Center also examines how institutional practices within correctional, healthcare, and social service systems influence psychological outcomes after release. Disruptions in care continuity, lack of family-centered support, and insufficient coordination between correctional facilities and community health systems frequently exacerbate mental health challenges during reentry, increasing vulnerability to relapse, family strain, and recidivism. This research seeks to clarify how unmet healthcare needs, particularly in mental health and basic wellness support, contribute to ongoing psychological distress, and how institutional design can reduce preventable harm.
Through research, data analysis, and evidence dissemination, the Center aims to inform prevention-focused, family-aware approaches that address these systemic shortcomings. Findings are intended to support the development of evidence-based models for improving healthcare access, strengthening family stability, and reducing psychological harm associated with incarceration and reentry. This work directly informs future clinic development, policy-relevant scholarship, and collaborative efforts with institutions seeking to improve outcomes for incarcerated individuals and their families, including changes to institutional procedures that affect service continuity.
Well-Being Clinics
Maryam Tree Center's long-term vision includes the development of Well-Being Clinics designed to address psychological needs that are insufficiently supported within traditional healthcare systems and institutional care pathways. These clinics will focus on psychological assessment, psychoeducational programming, wellness initiatives, and applied research rather than therapy or clinical treatment, with emphasis on how institutional barriers shape unmet needs and service fragmentation.
The clinics will examine how systemic stressors such as food insecurity, incarceration, chronic caregiving demands, family diagnosis of autism, and institutional barriers affect psychological well-being. Data generated through programming and community engagement will inform ongoing research, publications, and policy-relevant analysis aimed at improving psychological outcomes for families and communities, including institution-facing recommendations that strengthen continuity, access, and prevention.
Islamic Community Education and Capacity-Building
The Center develops research-informed resources for the greater Muslim community and mosque and masajid, focusing on psychological well-being, marital stability, caregiving stress, family functioning, emotional development, and other unmet community needs. Programming emphasizes prevention, capacity-building, and institutional awareness rather than counseling or therapy, including attention to how institutional structures and service systems shape stress exposure, help-seeking, and recovery.
Community-Engaged Psychological Research
The Center employs community-engaged research methods to ensure that research reflects lived experience and real-world conditions, including the realities of navigating institutional systems. These initiatives emphasize ethical collaboration with local communities in regions of focus, participatory inquiry, and shared knowledge production, particularly within underserved and historically marginalized communities, and include attention to institutional constraints that influence feasibility, uptake, and outcomes.
Data Transparency, Publication, and Knowledge Translation
Research findings are disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, research briefs, public reports, and evidence-informed materials. The Center prioritizes methodological rigor, clarity, and accessibility in sharing knowledge across academic, professional, institutional, and community audiences according to the American Psychological Association writing standards, with specific attention to producing decision-relevant outputs that institutions can use to improve practice, access, and continuity of support.
Professional Education and Collaborative Partnerships
The Center collaborates with universities, researchers, healthcare-adjacent institutions, community organizations, and faith-based partners to advance research, knowledge translation, and institutional dialogue related to psychological well-being, family stability, and system-level gaps in care. Partnerships prioritize shared measurement, outcomes monitoring, and the co-development of institution-facing practices that reduce chronic stressors and strengthen family stability across settings.
Our Impact
Maryam Tree Center's impact lies in advancing psychological research that clarifies how individual mental health, family stability, psychological well-being, and institutional conditions intersect across the life course. Through research initiatives, community-facing programming, and interdisciplinary collaboration, the Center contributes scholarship that integrates psychological science and Islamic psychology to better understand factors shaping family functioning, relational stability, and mental health, including the effects of incarceration on individuals and families and the institutional pathways through which psychological harm is intensified or reduced.
The Center’s work supports knowledge development that informs institutional awareness and system-level understanding. Program outcomes include improved insight into how family disruption, caregiving strain, individual mental health, food insecurity, and justice system involvement influence psychological outcomes, as well as the generation of research that can guide future policy, program design, and well-being initiatives for individuals, families and incarcerated populations, including evidence that supports institutional reforms that strengthen access, continuity, and family-centered support.
Regions of Focus:
Atlanta, Georgia
District of Columbia
South Carolina
Northern-Central, Florida