INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COUNSELLING最新文献

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experience of women with psychosocial disability in Uganda. The findings from 11 in-depth interviews conducted highlighted three themes featuring risk factors, protective factors, and proposed interventions to respond to the needs of women with psychosocial disability from the perspective of the women with lived experience. There are two major implications of this study. The first implication is that people in the helping profession can integrate the voices of the people who are directly affected by psychosocial disability to design interventions that are tailored to suit their needs. The second implication regards advocacy. Mental health professionals can use the stories shared by the participants to reinforce advocacy initiatives to mitigate the negative impact of psychosocial disability. Additionally, the findings can support people in the mental health profession, educators, and mental health policy designers in making informed decisions regarding interventions for people with psychosocial disability in limited resource settings like Uganda.

Recovery from substance misuse is complex and requires an individual’s desire and readiness for change. Specifically, for African Americans, additional factors such as social equity and access to culturally responsive treatments can complicate the recovery process. In this secondary analysis of a transcendental qualitative phenomenological study, researchers explored how eight African-American women navigated their change process in natural recovery. Researchers identified the following emergent themes: (a) focused on the drug; (b) engagement in risky behavior; (c) desire to be free; (d) Damascus Road experience; (e) plea to higher power; (d) geographical cure; (e) self-liberation in commitment; and (f) new associations. Findings are conceptualized through the Transtheoretical Model framework. Implications emphasize the importance of counselors’ outreach role in their communities.

Race has consistently been used as a metric for determining and maintaining social hierarchies and statuses. Despite an increased research focus on race, ethnicity, and identities, distinct racial categories persist and people who are racially ambiguous have largely been overlooked. Racial ambiguity refers to people whose outward presentations are inconsistent with preexisting beliefs about racial categorization (i.e., racial essentialism). Existing research on racial ambiguity has often focused on the social experiences of and perceptions toward racially ambiguous people. Further, being racially ambiguous has historically been conflated with identifying as solely biracial or multiracial. This phenomenological study addresses the existing gap in the literature by reporting on the lived experiences of racially ambiguous people of color with both monoracial and multiracial heritages. The results highlight unique mental health considerations of racially ambiguous participants of color (n = 14), including their cognitive, emotional, and social experiences. Implications and recommendations for counseling professionals are provided.

Cultures and communities throughout the world have offered unique and effective approaches to provide mental and emotional support throughout history. The researchers of this study recognize the value each culture brings to addressing mental health support distinctively, and this assumption drives the exploration of insight and knowledge from 16 participants identified as international counseling professionals from different countries, who offer their expertise through this qualitative research study. This content is the second part of a larger body of data, offering further insight for how international counseling values can inform ways that counselors adapt properly to community settings. The results reveal several themes identified as recognizing historical influences on counseling, promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), upholding multicultural values, and understanding urban and rural differences. In combination with information available in the literature, strategies are recommended for adapting to community settings all over the world, which include viewing clients contextually, integrating local terms and traditions, supporting local professional development, facilitating rural-urban collaborations, and continuing mental health advocacy.

Given the constant rise in racially and ethnically diverse populations in South Korean society, the need for understanding multicultural youth’s cultural challenges and promoting their psychosocial well-being has correspondingly increased in South Korea. This study aimed to examine the association between acculturative stress and psychosocial well-being consisting of self-esteem, social competence, and life satisfaction of multicultural youth living in South Korea (n = 2271). In addition, the current study investigated the buffering effect of multicultural youth’s host culture identity development in the relationship between acculturative stress and psychosocial well-being of multicultural youth in South Korea by conducting a moderation analysis. Research findings in this study showed that multicultural youth’s acculturative stress was significantly associated with their psychosocial well-being (i.e., self-esteem, social competence, and life satisfaction). Furthermore, the results of the moderation analysis identified that the host culture identity development had a significant buffering effect. Implications and future directions for mental health professionals, educators, and researchers were discussed.

The coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic has disproportionately impacted Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities due to systemic health disparities based on race, ethnicity, and systemic inequities. Among extent literature on BIPOC mental health and COVID-19, there is a pressing need for culturally responsive, trauma-informed treatment approaches that go beyond the broader impacts of the pandemic or immediate pandemic-related concerns and address the persisting impacts of the COVID-19 on BIPOC mental health. To this end, our article aims to equip professional counselors with the necessary tools to serve BIPOC clients more effectively by (1) understanding the ethno-racial inequities of the COVID-19 pandemic, (2) assessing the intersectional dimensions of stress and trauma associated with COVID-19, and (3) employing therapeutic approaches to promote physical and mental well-being in BIPOC clients.

Partnerships between school counsellors and parents can improve students’ wellbeing and learning outcomes. School counsellors are well placed to take on central roles in the development and maintenance of such partnerships. However, research is limited on counsellor-parent partnerships in the Philippines, where the professional identities of school counsellors are less well developed. We interviewed 13 private school counsellors to explore how perceptions of their professional identities influence practices related to school-home partnerships and conducted a thematic analysis on the data. Our findings suggest that effective partnerships are supported by counsellors’ beliefs about the importance of such partnerships, and to some extent by schools’ recognition of the value of counsellors. However, partnerships are undermined by counsellors’ unclear and inappropriate roles and their low status. Cultural characteristics also impede effective partnerships. School counsellors in the Philippines need a well-defined role aligned with their competencies, scope of practice, and code of ethics and may need to be more empowered by principals to develop counsellor-parent partnerships in culturally appropriate ways.

In the present study, we investigated whether the internalized model minority myth was associated with a range of mental health-related attitudes in a sample of Asian American college students in Hawaiʻi. Participants were 391 Asian American college students recruited from psychology courses at a 4-year public university in Hawaiʻi. As part of their course activities, they voluntarily completed an online survey package that included the measures of interest. The achievement facet of the internalized model minority myth was positively and uniquely associated with the exclusion and course/origin facets of mental health stigma (i.e., stigmatizing attitudes toward people with a psychological disorder). The unrestricted mobility facet of the internalized model minority myth was positively and uniquely associated with the course/origin facet of mental health stigma. Neither facet of the internalized model minority myth was associated with mental health help-seeking attitudes. Implications of these findings and future directions in research are discussed.

Grounded in racial identity development theories, the present study examined how COVID-related racial discrimination is related to Asian Americans’ wellbeing (i.e., life satisfaction and positive and negative affect) via sequential mediations by (a) internalized model minority myth of achievement orientation and unrestricted mobility and color-blindness and (b) mainstream and ethnic social connectedness. Asian American adults (N = 407; 49.9% female; 32% first generation, 40% second generation, and 28% third generation; M_age = 33.81) were recruited nationally through Amazon Mechanical Turk (n = 350) and through personal contacts (n = 57). Path analysis revealed that COVID-related discrimination was directly and indirectly related to wellbeing via internalized model minority myth, color-blindness, and social connectedness. Interestingly, racial discrimination was both negatively and positively related to wellbeing via the mediational paths. As hypothesized, racial discrimination was negatively related to the internalized model minority myth of unrestricted mobility and color-blindness. Unrestricted mobility was positively related to both mainstream and ethnic connectedness, whereas color-blindness was negatively related to ethnic connectedness. Mainstream and ethnic connectedness, in turn, were both positively associated with wellbeing. In the face of COVID-related discrimination, the findings suggest the importance of understanding Asian Americans’ wellbeing in relation to their racial beliefs and social connectedness. Implications for research and clinical practice are discussed.

Abstract

Little is known about how Filipino secular psychotherapists understand and address the religious/spiritual struggles of their clients. The current study employed a qualitative approach in exploring the experiences of secular psychotherapists in addressing religious/spiritual struggles in secular psychotherapy. The authors interviewed six secular psychotherapists who identified as Catholics but practiced from a secular lens. Data were examined using interpretative phenomenological analysis and were independently audited by an external auditor to establish rigor and trustworthiness. Three superordinate themes emerged from the findings: (1) the objects; (2) the lenses; and (3) the approaches to the objects. These main themes each reflected three subordinate themes, derived by clustering the content accordingly. For the participants, addressing religious/spiritual struggles in secular therapy can be likened to a field of view wherein they are looking through a secular lens, which influences how they view and address the religious/spiritual struggles of their clients. The secular psychotherapists’ understanding and approach to religious/spiritual struggles are heavily influenced by their theoretical orientation. However, they acknowledge the impact of their values and beliefs in their practice of psychotherapy. The findings of the study have implications for the practice of psychotherapy as well as the training of future psychotherapists in the Philippines.