What it means
رواندرمانی (ravân-darmâni) is the standard formal term for psychotherapy in Iranian medical and clinical contexts. It is a compound noun: روان (ravân), meaning soul or psyche, is pure Persian, tracing back to Middle Persian ruwān and Avestan urvan, while درمان (darmân), meaning treatment or cure, is also pure Persian. Together the compound means, literally, soul-treatment. In everyday speech, especially among younger Iranians, you will also hear the shortened colloquial form تراپی (terâpi), borrowed from English therapy. A close institutional synonym is روانپزشکی (ravân-pezeshki), though that refers specifically to psychiatry (with medication), not talk therapy.
How to use it
- دارم رواندرمانی میکنم. (dâram ravân-darmâni mi-konam.) “I am doing psychotherapy.”
- رواندرمانی برام خیلی کمک کرد. (ravân-darmâni baram kheyli komak kard.) “Psychotherapy helped me a lot.”
- متخصص رواندرمانی پیدا کردن سخته. (motakhasess-e ravân-darmâni peydâ kardan sakhte.) “Finding a psychotherapy specialist is hard.”
- رواندرمانی با دارو فرق داره. (ravân-darmâni bâ dâru farq dâre.) “Psychotherapy is different from medication.”
Cultural note
Mental health care carries significant stigma in many Iranian families, particularly among older generations. Seeking رواندرمانی is still sometimes seen as admitting weakness or bringing shame on a family, so younger Iranians often use the borrowed term تراپی (terâpi) precisely because it sounds more clinical and less charged. Since the late 2010s, public awareness of mental health has grown considerably, and many Iranian therapists now work remotely with diaspora clients across Europe and North America. The 2022 protests in Iran brought a surge of public conversation about collective trauma, and رواندرمانی entered mainstream online discourse in ways it had not before.