Ethnopsychiatry: Counselling immigrants in France

The plight of immigrants in France and the United States bear a striking similarity. This article highlights the struggle of immigrants in the French society and the discrimination they face. A French academic discipline calledethnopsychiatry has arisen to help immigrants in France. It appears to be very similar in purpose to cross-cultural counselling, but draws more heavily in practice from traditional healing techniques used in Africa. The pioneeringstrides of ethnopsychiatry in the cross-cultural counselling paradigm are discussed.     

Third-Party Funding and Counselling in New Zealand: Implications for Counselling Services and Professional Autonomy

When, in New Zealand, a new third-party government funding arrangement was introduced for sexual abuse counselling, counsellors experienced challenges to their work practice and professional autonomy. There are some parallels between this experience and the influence of Managed Care on counselling in the United States. This article interprets the ways in which the development of counselling in New Zealand, and the New Zealand Association of Counsellors (NZAC) interacted with the government agency, the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). responsible for the funding. The resulting funding arrangements, while initially mutually beneficial to government and counsellors, are now being questioned by counsellors and the NZAC. Possible responses to this situation by New Zealand counsellors are explored and discussed in the context of wider international responses to third-party funding issues.     

Counselling the Micronesian client

The Micronesian client comes from a strategically important Western Pacific area that bears its own unique culture. To serve the Micronesian client more than adequately, the therapist needs an awareness and understanding of the culture of the Micronesians. The role their culture plays upon the development of the Micronesian and upon the psyche of the Micronesian is explored.     

Counselling the retrenched workers in Nigeria

Worker retrenchment on a massive scale was introduced in Nigeria by the Military Government a few months after the overthrow of the civilian regime at the close of 1983. It was regarded as one of the short term measures to resuscitate the depressed economy through the reduction of overhead costs. Paradoxically, mass retrenchment of workers has brought about devastating side effects such as an insidious inflammation of psychosocial problems that call for psychotherapeutic activities by counsellors.The retrenchment effect has been most experienced by ethmic minorities, the poor and less educated Nigerians. A sample of 500 retrenched workers has revealed a variety of devastating psychosocial effects such as deteriorating self-esteem, general irritability, stomach ulcers, a tendency to commit crimes, high blood pressure and heart diseases, financial emaciation and depression. Counselling strategies such as vocational counselling, rational counselling and educational counselling for minorities have been recommended.Paper presented at IRTAC 1985, University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands, July 15–19, 1985.     

Homophobia in Counselling Practice

Current attitudes of counselling practitioners towards sexual and gender differences raise the possibility that minority clients may experience re-traumatisation due to in-session expressions of therapist homophobia. This paper explores these issues through a qualitative study that examines client and counsellor narratives on homophobia in counselling. The results describe specific examples of homophobic behaviour by counsellors. While individual examples might appear mundane on the surface, the frameworks they invoke and their pervasiveness constitutes a considerable threat to the counselling relationship. The paper argues that homophobia in counselling practice is a significant issue that requires sensitive, critical and applied analysis that redirects therapeutic efforts in the future.     

Fetters or Freedom: Dual Relationships in Counselling

Dual relationships occur whenever one person assumes more than one role in a relationship with another person. They may be unavoidable and are not necessarily harmful but there is always a potential for a conflict of interest and exploitation; because of this a number of Western professional counselling organisations have prohibited all dual relationships. Whilst this is essential for sexual dual relationships it can be too rigid for non-sexual ones because of the different cultural, social or geographical circumstances. Examples of non-sexual dual relationships such as acceptance of gifts, barter, attendance at social events and the use of touch are all explored to find appropriate and constructive ways to use them.     

Career Counselling in the Emerging Post-Industrial Society

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - What are the major changes that characterise the emerging post-industrial society? More specifically, what are the changes in the...     

Counselling in the culturally diverse society: Some neglected variables in research

Cross-cultural research, especially in the area of counselling, has received considerable attention in the professional literature. Closer inspection of published research reveals that most often the variable of race is considered central. Some crucial cross-cultural variables have been ignored in favour of the racial factor. This paper discusses some of these conspicuous cultural factors which are relevant to the counselling process. In addition, some research-specific problems in the cultural arena of investigation are considered. The need of effective models for counselling in a culturally mosaic society such as Canada is stressed.Paper presented at the ninth IRTAC, Greece, April 1980.     

Challenges and transformations: Counselling in a multicultural context

During the last two decades counselling in a multicultural context has been on the increase with more and more training programmes now including issues of race, culture and ethnicity. This has led to numerous approaches, for example transcultural, inter-cultural, cross-cultural, multicultural, Afro-centric, anti-racist and black feminist, which define counselling with minority groups. Although many of these approaches have a sound theoretical base, they nevertheless remain marginal in terms of convincing the minority communities of their value and effectiveness. This is clearly seen in the pre-mature termination and lack of participation by minorities in counselling and therapy. The chief criticism against counselling throughout this period is that, it has remained essentially, Eurocentric, ethnocentric and individualistic. Culture-sensitive counsellors and counselling within a "culture fit" model have been suggested as a way of making the process more appropriate to a diversity of cultures. Furthermore, this has led to some practitioners strongly advocating the inclusion of socio-economic and political constructs as part of a broader definition of multicultural counselling. For example, the issues of power and influence, cultural hegemony, racism and masculinities are becoming key schemas in cross cultural counselling practices. The challenge for multicultural counselling, in the next decade, would be to include traditional healing practices as part of its discourse, if it is to encourage the active participation of ethnicminorities. This paper is an attempt to explore some of these challenges and highlight some of the transformations that are taking place within multicultural counselling. Finally, through a discussion of a case vignette, the paper illustrates the need to accommodate traditional healing methods in counselling the culturally diverse client.     

A Counselling Experiment in Brazil: Difficulties and Opportunities

This paper compares the No Blame approach to bullying with the ecosystemic approach to changing problem behaviour. It suggests that there are several similarities between the two approaches: they are both applicable in particular kinds of situation; their success depends to a great extent on the people using the technique, in particular the degree to which they can bring the quality of genuineness to the situation; they are not directly concerned with punishment, truth or control; and they challenge the assumptions teachers make about children's problem behaviour. A key point is the need for teachers to recognize that bullying is a natural event (in so far that it is a regular one) and the need to suspend their own feelings of anger and repugnance. As the writer points out, ‘a process which fails to engage the bully and makes no attempt to enhance feelings of concern and understanding is unlikely to bring about any fundamental change in behaviour’. Though written at a fairly theoretical level, what the writer says has direct relevance to practice in schools.     

Counselling Issues in Mainstream Schools

This article sets out to consider the definition of counselling, the nature of counselling in educational establishments and the identtties of those in the counselling role in order to examine counselling issues and the implications for a counselling relationship in an educational setting. Although my emphasis is upon mainstream schools, I make reference to my experience in a residential home for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties where I first became aware of the different perceptions and issues regarding counselling.