Abu Zayd Ahmed ibn Sahl Balkhi was a Persian Muslim polymath: a geographer, physician and scientist. Born in 850 CE in Shamistiyan, in the province of Balkh, Khorasan, he was a disciple of al-Kindi, he was the founder the "Balkhī school" of terrestrial mapping in Baghdad. Of the many books ascribed to him in the al-Fihrist by Ibn al-Nadim, one can note the excellency of mathematics, his Figures of the Climates consisted chiefly of geographical maps. He wrote the medical and psychological work, Masalih al-Abdan wa al-Anfus. A modern scholar describes the bulk of his works as "more than sixty books and manuscripts, meticulously researching disciplines as varied in scope as geography, theology, philosophy, literature, Arabic grammar, astronomy, biography, sociology as well as others." His Figures of the Regions consisted chiefly of geographical maps. It led to him founding the "Balkhī school" of terrestrial mapping in Baghdad; the geographers of this school wrote extensively of the peoples and customs of areas in the Muslim world, with little interest in the non-Muslim realms.

In Islamic psychology, the concepts of mental health and "mental hygiene" were introduced by Abu Zayd al-Balkhi, who related it to spiritual health. In his Masalih al-Abdan wa al-Anfus, he was the first to discuss diseases related to both the body and the soul, he used the term al-Tibb al-Ruhani to describe spiritual and psychological health, the term Tibb al-Qalb to describe mental medicine. He criticized many medical doctors in his time for placing too much emphasis on physical illnesses and neglecting the psychological or mental illnesses of patients, argued that "since man’s construction is from both his soul and his body, human existence cannot be healthy without the ishtibak of soul and body." He further argued that "if the body gets sick, the nafs loses much of its cognitive and comprehensive ability and fails to enjoy the desirous aspects of life" and that "if the nafs gets sick, the body may find no joy in life and may develop a physical illness." Al-Balkhi traced back his ideas on mental health to verses of the Qur'an and hadiths attributed to Muhammad, such as: "In their hearts is a disease."

"Truly, in the body there is a morsel of flesh, when it is corrupt the body is corrupt, when it is sound the body is sound. It is the qalb." "Verily Allah does not consider your appearances or your wealth in but He considers your hearts and your deeds." Abu Zayd al-Balkhi was the first to differentiate between neurosis and psychosis, the first to classify neurotic disorders and pioneer cognitive therapy in order to treat each of these classified disorders. He classified neurosis into four emotional disorders: fear and anxiety and aggression, sadness and depression, obsession, he further classified three types of depression: normal depression or sadness, endogenous depression originating from within the body, reactive clinical depression originating from outside the body. He wrote that a healthy individual should always keep healthy thoughts and feelings in his mind in the case of unexpected emotional outbursts in the same way drugs and First Aid medicine are kept nearby for unexpected physical emergencies.

He stated that a balance between the mind and body is required for good health and that an imbalance between the two can cause sickness. Al-Balkhi introduced the concept of reciprocal inhibition, re-introduced over a thousand years by Joseph Wolpe in 1969; the Muslim physician Abu Zayd al-Balkhi was a pioneer of psychotherapy and psychosomatic medicine. He recognized that the body and the soul can be healthy or sick, or "balanced or imbalanced", that mental illness can have both psychological and/or physiological causes, he wrote that imbalance of the body can result in fever and other physical illnesses, while imbalance of the soul can result in anger, anxiety and other mental symptoms. He recognized two types of depression: one caused by known reasons such as loss or failure, which can be treated psychologically through both external methods and internal methods, he wrote comparisons between physical disorders with mental disorders, showed how psychosomatic disorders can be caused by certain interactions between them.

List of Muslim scientists Islamic science Islamic mathematics Islamic medicine M. J. de Goeje: "Die Istakhri-Balkhi Frage". H. Suter: Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber. Abu Zayd Balkhi's biography by W. M. Watt in Iranica

Bo is a Swedish/Danish masculine given name, derived from an Old Norse nickname, meaning "to live". A variant of Bo is the Swedish Bosse. Bo is uncommon as a surname. Bo is short for several names, including Beaufort, Bonita or Bonnie. Bo Anderson, birth name of American Brazilian DJ and producer Maga Bo Bo Bergman, Swedish poet Bo Boustedt, Swedish Army lieutenant general Bo Bowling, American football player Bo Danske, 13th-century Danish philosopher Bo Ericson, Swedish hammer thrower Bo Hamburger, Danish former cyclist Bo Hansson, Swedish musician Bo Holmberg, Swedish politician Bo Ljungberg, Swedish pole vaulter Bo Mossberg, Swedish author and illustrator of Den nya nordiska floran Bo Scarbrough, American football player Bo Svenson, Swedish-born American actor Bo Svensson, Danish football player Bo Widerberg, Swedish film director Bo Wang, Doctor of Probability Bo Belinsky, American Major League Baseball pitcher Bo Bice, American singer who placed second on the fourth season of American Idol Gudmundur S. Bodvarsson, Icelandic hydrogeologist Bo Bolinger, American football player Jérôme Napoléon Bonaparte, American farmer, son of Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Jérôme and Elizabeth Patterson Bo Brown, American cartoonist Bo Burnham, American singer songwriter/comedian Bo Burris, American retired National Football League player Bo Cornell, American retired National Football League player Israel "Bo" Curtis, African-American educator and politician Bo Derek, American actress Bo Diddley, American R&B and Chicago blues musician Bo Hopkins, American actor Bo Horvat, Canadian hockey player Bo Jackson, American former National Football League and Major League Baseball player Bo Kimble, American basketball player Bo Lamar, American former basketball player Bo Outlaw, American former National Basketball Association player Bo Pelini, American college football head coach Bo Robinson, American retired National Football League player Bo Ryan, American college basketball coach and former player Bo Schembechler, American football player, college head coach and administrator Bo Songvisava, Thai chef Bo Adams, main character in the Believe TV series Bo Abobo from the video game Double Dragon Bo Brady, in the boap opera Days of Our Lives Bo Callahan, main draft prospect in the movie Draft Day Bo Cocky, the main protagonist in the 2006 film Supertwink Bo, protagonist of the Canadian TV series Lost Girl Bo Duke, one of the main characters in The Dukes of Hazzard TV series Bo Monkey, a main character in the Nickelodeon TV series Fresh Beat Band of Spies Little Bo Peep, from a nursery rhyme Bo Peep, in the Toy Story animated film Bo' Rai Cho, in the Mortal Kombat video game series Bo Sheep, in the US Acres comic strip Bo Sinclair, in the 2005 film House of Wax Bo, a cheetah from the British animated TV series Mama Mirabelle's Home Movies Bo, a cartoon character in Muse magazine Bo, an orphan named "Boniface" in the Cornelia Funke novel The Thief Lord Bo, the main protagonist of the 2017 animated film The Star Bo Hess from the movie Signs Bosse