A Local Approach Toward Multicultural Counseling in Malaysia

Malaysia is a multicultural and multi-religious country. The importance of multicultural counseling has been widely recognized and discussed. Counselors need to be multiculturally-knowledgeable when dealing with multicultural clients. The effectiveness of counseling may likely be improved by integrating Malaysian approaches that are tailored to this country’s traditions and insights, into the current conventional counseling practices. Most of these counseling and psychotherapy theories are based on, and biased towards, the Euro-American culture. Novice counselors in particular frequently reported a lack of skills in dealing with culturally-diverse clients. Multicultural counseling competency is an evolutionary progress that is meant to achieve an effective treatment, and greater inclusion of minorities in mainstream society. Therefore, this paper highlights multicultural counseling competencies and the evolution of counseling in Malaysia. Using narrative method literature review, this paper presents local approaches toward counseling in Malaysia, based on various religions, which are specifically focused on an Islamic approach. This paper then compares and contrasts the local approaches with those of the conventional Western based counseling methods. Some recommendations that merit further investigation are highlighted for future studies.

The Value of Adapting Counseling to Client’s Spirituality and Religion: Evidence-Based Relationship Factors

There is a strong tradition of attention to relationship factors in the field of counseling. The research on the importance of the relationship and adapting to client factors continues to grow, supporting the importance of professional multicultural competence. The field of counseling, specifically within the United States context, has focused on Multicultural Counseling Competencies with more recent emphasis on social justice through the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies. Within these competencies, spirituality and religion are mentioned as multicultural components to consider as potentially salient to clients. Yet, there has been less emphasis on ways to adapt counseling to a client’s spirituality and religion compared to other multicultural components of one’s identity, such as race, gender, and culture. Historically, a lack of training, fear of causing offense, or concerns about influencing clients, resulted in clients’ spirituality and religion being overlooked far too often in counseling. Despite this tendency, recent clinical evidence on relational responsiveness identifies the adaptation of counseling to a client’s spirituality and religion as highly effective. In this article, the authors discuss how adapting counseling to a client’s spirituality and religion, in relation to all multicultural factors salient to the client, enhances relational responsiveness and treatment effectiveness. The authors also discuss the implications for training, supervision, and practice.

A Counselor’s Cultural Identity: Implications from A Multicultural Counseling Perspective in Malaysia

Malaysia is a country with a diversified cultural background, ethnicities, and religions. Islam is the most widely practiced religion, followed by Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, other traditional Chinese religions, as well as other indigenous religions. Despite the richness of the cultural landscape, the counseling services in Malaysia seem to be very limited in terms of diversification of multiculturalism. Cultural relevance of counselling theories, adaptation of Western-trained counseling services to suit a Malaysian culture, and multicultural counseling competencies, are among the concerns in the profession. This paper focuses on factors that shape a counselor’s identity based on their cultural background, and its implications on multicultural counseling in Malaysia. Among the important factors highlighted in this paper are religious beliefs and values, locus of control, gender, and personality. This paper encapsulates the importance of understanding a counselor’s cultural identity for the effectiveness of multicultural counseling in Malaysia.

Counseling LGBT Military Clients Using the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies Framework

When working with LGBT service member clients, counselors should use the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies as a framework to guide their practice as they navigate the intersection between the military culture and LGBT culture. This framework addresses four domains that are foundational for multicultural and social justice competency: (a) counselor self-awareness, (b) the client worldview, (c) the counseling relationship, and (d) counseling and advocacy interventions. Included in the framework are the following aspirational competencies within each domain: attitudes and beliefs, knowledge, skills, and action. Best practices for culturally competent, social-justice-focused work with LGBT service members within each of these domains are discussed.

Crisis Counseling for Black Lives Matter Protests

The resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in response to the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black individuals during the summer of 2020 was accompanied by widespread public demonstration and protest. Despite the peaceful nature of most demonstrations, data indicate that protesters experienced police violence at a disproportionate rate compared to demonstrations associated with other movements. Due to the crisis and unrest that undue police violence toward Black communities can cause, it is imperative that counselors identify ways to support communities in their collective acts toward resistance and liberation. This article reviews how counselors can integrate the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies and the American Counseling Association’s Advocacy Competencies into crisis counseling responses that support protesters of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Adaptation and Psychometric Evaluation of the Chinese Counseling Competencies Scale-Revised

Objectives: This study conducted a linguistic and psychometric evaluation of the Chinese Counseling Competencies Scale-Revised (CCS-R).Methods: The Chinese CCS-R was created from the original English version using a standard forward-backward translation process. The psychometric properties of the Chinese CCS-R were examined in a cohort of 208 counselors-in-training by two independent raters. Fifty-three counselors-in-training were asked to undergo another counseling performance evaluation for the test-retest. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted for the Chinese CCS-R, followed by internal consistency, test-retest reliability, inter-rater reliability, convergent validity, and concurrent validity.Results: The results of the CFA supported the factorial validity of the Chinese CCS-R, with adequate construct replicability. The scale had a McDonald's omega of 0.876, and intraclass correlation coefficients of 0.63 and 0.90 for test-retest reliability and inter-rater reliability, respectively. Significantly positive correlations were observed between the Chinese CCS-R score and scores of performance checklist (Pearson's γ = 0.781), indicating a large convergent validity, and knowledge on drug abuse (Pearson's γ = 0.833), indicating a moderate concurrent validity.Conclusion: The results support that the Chinese CCS-R is a valid and reliable measure of the counseling competencies.Practice implication: The CCS-R provides trainers with a reliable tool to evaluate counseling students' competencies and to facilitate discussions with trainees about their areas for growth.

Designing and implementing a STEM career maturity program for prospective counselors

Background Although the importance of directing students to career options in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields at early ages has been emphasized in the literature, it has not been clearly stated just who will play a role in this process and what kind of consultancy process will be followed. It is of great importance for prospective counselors, who are studying in the field of counseling, to master the career selection process, specifically for STEM, towards achieving the national goals. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the career counseling competencies of prospective counselors who were participating in a STEM career maturity program. Findings The current study employed the mixed-methods sequential explanatory design. In this design, after collecting and analyzing the quantitative and qualitative data, both datasets were then interpreted together. The quantitative data analysis revealed a significant difference between the post-test mean career counseling and performance indicator scores of the experimental and the control groups (u = 49.00; P < 0.05). The career counseling and performance indicator mean rank and sum of mean scores of the students in the experimental group were higher than those of the students in the control group. The mean career counseling and performance indicator scores of the students in the experimental group increased after the experimental application (Z = – 3.07; P < 0.01). Moreover, the effect size was also calculated and determined to be 0.58. As a result of the analysis of qualitative data, 4 themes were established, comprising (1) personal and professional development, (2) awareness of the STEM majors and careers, (3) STEM-focused career counseling, and (4) feedback about the program. Conclusions This study found that the STEM career maturity program that was designed and implemented herein resulted in positive impacts on the career counseling competencies and performance indicators of the participants, as well as their knowledge and awareness of professional STEM areas. Considering the role of school counselors in supporting students in choosing STEM careers, this newly proposed STEM career maturity program will provide a strong model for supporting pre-service and in-service school counselors in directing students towards STEM fields, so as to develop a qualified workforce in STEM fields, which is one of the main objectives of the STEM education reform.