What appears to us as reasonable conclusions from within the perspective of our own culture may in fact look different from another cultural perspective.
In this dynamic age, we live in a rapidly changing world characterized by globalization, the pace of which seems to continually accelerate. Multiculturalism has become normative as a result of globalization. Culture has various facets, from personal and interpersonal to familial, institutional, organizational, and communal; forming a multilevel system. A person’s culture can be defined by stage of life, gender, ethnicity, religion, social economic status, etc. It is the responsibility of mental health practitioners to develop sensitivity to cultural differences so that appropriate therapeutic approaches can be adopted to enhance the effectiveness of therapeutic outcomes.
In light of this, it is crucial and necessary to draw attention to multicultural perspectives of counselling and psychotherapy. In this new issue, we bring together five insightful articles highlighting different therapeutic or psychoeducational approaches to supporting clients of different backgrounds.
The issue begins with an article written by Claire Margaret Ryan, Campbell S Innes, Lee Kannis-Dymand, Jonathon Mason, and Geoff P Lovell, who investigate the efficacy of a psychoeducational programme for the members in community sports settings. Specifically, they assess whether a purposefully designed psychoeducational intervention can increase participants’ knowledge of mental illness, improve their attitude towards mental illness stigma, and encourage their help-seeking intentions. The positive outcomes suggest the potential of delivering brief psychoeducational programmes to the sports community as preventive interventions.
Carl Lorenz G. Cervantes and Karina Therese G. Fernandez delineate and discuss a psychotherapy framework proposed by the Filipino psychologist Fr. Jaime C. Bulatao. His framework is guided by a Filipino worldview – transpersonal, emphasizing the perspective of shared collective consciousness and incorporating a conceptual model of telepathy into therapeutic processes. By interviewing licenced psychologists trained under Bulatao, the study explores the experience and phenomenological structures of telepathy in therapeutic settings.
Schools are sometimes considered a microcosm of society, forming a unique culture. The remaining three articles are oriented upon school contexts.
Tatsuto Yamada, Aya Sato, Yugan So, Kana Kobayashi, and Yashushi Fujii devote attention to the concern of absenteeism in elementary and middle schools. In particular, the authors systematically review assessments and techniques of cognitive-behavioural approaches to dealing with school absenteeism in Japan. They evaluate the cases in reviewed articles to examine the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioural approaches in addressing school refusal behaviours. Their findings provide support for the adoption of two or more behavioural techniques to optimize therapeutic outcomes, offering insights that are useful to school counsellors.
The study conducted by Isaiah C. de la Cruz, Daniela Catherine M. Agpaoa, Michael Bernabe B. Archeta, Jamila Gayle H. Paris, and Patricia D. Simon places emphasis on graduates of higher educational institutions in the Philippines. They endeavour to investigate the prevalence of depression among graduates during the pandemic and examine the connection between depressive symptoms and the locus of hope using the quantitative approach. They further identify the sources of hope using the qualitative method. This research sheds light on the potential of hope-based interventions in easing symptoms of depression in college graduates.
School counselling is part of the psychological well-being system, associated with many stakeholders, such as school counsellors, teachers, students, etc. However, community counsellors have typically been ignored as one of the key parties in school counselling. Poi Kee Low and Luke van der Laan address this gap by surveying community-based counsellors to solicit their perceptions of school counselling/counsellors with regard to managing confidentiality, working with families, and realizing community resources. Different counselling divisions have their own cultures and specialities, even though they may deal with the same target groups. This research helps promote a deeper understanding of each other to strengthen seamless school-community collaboration.
We hope this issue with counselling, psychoeducational and psychotherapy work in different cultures can inspire practitioners from a wide range of backgrounds and lay the groundwork for more culturally sensitive research in counselling in the future.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Zhou De-Hui Ruth
Zhou, De-Hui Ruth is an associate professor in the Department of Counselling and Psychology at Hong Kong Shue Yan University. Her research areas include evidence-based research in metaphor cognition and mental health of children and youth. She is interested in practice and research work in narrative therapy, expressive arts therapy and play therapy.
Kwok Ho Ling
Kwok, Ho Ling holds degrees in counselling and psychology and linguistics. She is currently working as a research assistant at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research interests include cognitive psychology, language processing, and communication.
Thompson Nigel
Thompson, Nigel is an assistant professor in the Department of Counselling and Psychology at Hong Kong Shue Yan University. His areas of professional interest include phenomenological perspectives in counselling and psychotherapy, clinical hypnosis, and positive technology.
Reference
- Samovar, L. A., Porter, R. E., McDaniel, E. R., & Roy, C. S. (2013). Communication between cultures (8th ed.). Wadsworth Cengage Learning.