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.

A Case Using the Process Model of Multicultural Counseling Competence

This article presents a hypothetical counseling case that demonstrates the use of the process model of multicultural counseling competence. The counselor is an African American woman at a university counseling service, and the client is a young Chinese American woman and a sophomore at the university. First, we present an introduction to the case, giving a profile description of the client and counselor. Second, we unveil the counseling process through the model’s three phases, with demonstrations of the various features of the model. The unfolding format of the case captures the process nature of the model and dynamic interactions in the facilitation of therapeutic change. Selected excerpts illustrate counselor and client dialogue during the course of counseling, and examples of counselor multicultural counseling competencies highlight the prescriptive use of the process model. Third, we provide a reflection of the case, adding commentary on the application of the model.

Multicultural Counseling Competencies

Given the diversity related curriculum requirements of many accrediting bodies in education and the human services to improve service delivery for those who are part of underrepresented groups in the United States, the curriculum requirements efficacy is debatable. Evidence suggest there is a disconnect between the principles of social justice and multicultural counseling competencies and the lack of application of these two principles. This chapter will emphasize these concerns and the reasons why there is such a gap with the application of these two principles using both empirical and anecdotal evidence from past research. Because the terms behavior/action and application seems to be used as synonyms, we will explore the explicit differences in these and other terms. This chapter will also highlight scenarios and give examples of what application looks like and end with recommendations to improve the application of both the multicultural counseling and social justice principles.

Hiking With Heidi

The following chapter describes the experience of counseling a woman named Heidi (name and identifying details changed to protect confidentiality) using Ecotherapy and the Multicultural Counseling Competencies. The chapter describes Heidi and her presenting problems, an introduction of the author, and the author's unique approach to counseling, the application of theory to her work with Heidi using existential and systems theories, as well as practicing in nature. The goals and progress that was made in their journey together through the counseling relationship is described. Throughout their journey together, Heidi utilized her strengths, which empowered her to make changes in her life that were beneficial for her growth, health, and happiness by implementing changes in her life that fully honored the complexity of her humanity.

Facilitating Application of the Multicultural Counseling Competencies

Diverse people living throughout the world have existed for many centuries. Perhaps, the United States may have one of the most diverse populations in recent memory. There are indications that human service organizations need to be more accessible when underrepresented groups either seek, or are in the pipeline of providers. To facilitate outcomes of all populations, we assert that the Multicultural Counseling Competencies (MCC) model that deals with awareness, knowledge, and skills should emphasize the application concept more. We operationalized cognitive, behavior and action, and application terms and applied these terms to the MCC in extensive examples. Additionally, we highlight that the use of the terms behavior and action are mistakenly conflated to mean application. Thus, decreasing application principles in the MCC. Future research and recommendations are highlighted.

The Multicultural Counseling Competencies: An Empirical Investigation

While the Multicultural Counseling Competencies (MCC) can be used for all populations, there is a gap between Awareness: Attitudes and Belief, Knowledge, Skills, and Application. As many underrepresented groups are increasingly becoming a major part of the demographic transformation, being culturally competent is critical. We examined the cognitive, behavior/action, and application categories in both the 1996 and 2016 MCC. Thus, we discovered more cognitive and behavioral/action than application statements in both the 1996 and 2016 MCC. Recommendations and implications are discussed.

What Makes the Efficacy and Effectiveness of Multicultural Counseling?

Today, multicultural counseling to be one of the most efficacy and effective helping professionals services in helping counselees achieve positive changes. But, critical question is what makes efficacy and effectiveness of multicultural counseling? The purpose of this study is to explore of the factors affecting the efficacy and effectiveness of multicultural counseling. This study used survey method. The participant included 30 pre-service counselor educators (master’s students) from Department of Guidance and Counseling in Universitas Negeri Jakarta. Data were collected using questionnaire that is Common Factors in Multicultural Counseling Scale in the form of Likert five-level scale. The data were analyzed with exploratory factor analysis. The results showed that there are two factors affecting the efficacy and effectiveness of multicultural counseling in the perspectives of pre-service counselor educators, named: (1) specific factors, such as: counseling approach and techniques and multicultural counseling competencies; and (2) common factors, such as: person of the counselor (wisdom) and counseling alliance. The implication is that counselor educators need to consider and develop these factors in Counselor Education and Supervision programs.