In the midst of the “Women Life Freedom” uprisings in Iran, a quote from the representative of the Supreme Leader in Khuzestan province was circulated. It claimed that the majority of the arrestees are children of divorce, have a history of substance abuse, and have acted impulsively based on their emotions. What stands out is the kind of argument that a religious state official uses to discredit the movement. This paper inquires into this phenomenon from a historical perspective: How did mental health discourses gain so much popularity, enabling them to break the borders between the “traditional” and the “modern”? By analyzing parliamentary archives as well as the unexplored pages of public magazines from a period of intensive modernization in Iran, this paper highlights how citizens from different segments of Iranian society understood health. Previous literature on the 20th century scientific discourses emphasizes the role of middle class professionals in educating society. This paper, on the other hand, points to an anti-professional trend, which prioritized medical knowledge over medical professionals. Concurrently, popular magazines of the 40s-60s promoted the pursuit of scientific and medical knowledge, and they themselves played a part in making this knowledge accessible for their readers. Analyzing the contents of the scientific or advice pages of popular magazines, this paper offers a hypothetical answer to the question of the popularity of mental health discourses in Iran. I argue that using a combination of mystical/Sufi and scientific terminology was instrumental in the formation of an Iranian mental health discourse that could be accessible for a broader audience. For example, an article tried to help the readers understand themselves by offering seven kinds of reactions that humans show when they need to “escape” life’s problems. Among the reactions/solutions are Freudian expressions such as “regression” to childhood, as well as indirect references to mystical paths, recognizing “Tahzib-e Akhlagh” [Ethical Attunement] as the best strategy to deal with life’s problems, while there is not a single mention of specialists. In this way, the authors of popular magazines used the social capital and the accessibility of mystical terminology to the public audience in order to promote new scientific ideas to them, which had the extra benefit of localizing the “global” or ”foreign” knowledge of psychiatry, psychoanalysis, or psychology. This research, thus, contributes to our understanding of the local life of transnational scientific ideas within the context of Middle Eastern societies.