Counseling in Malaysia: An Emerging Profession

Abstract

The emergence of counseling in Malaysia illustrates the importance of a strong professional association and counseling training programs at the university level.

Barriers and challenges in the practice of multicultural counselling in Malaysia: A qualitative interview study

“…Many Western-trained counsellors are concerned regarding the extent of modification needed to culturally adapt the counselling process that they learnt abroad in order to be consistent with the clients' diversity and multicultural issues in the Malaysian context. In view of the religious and racial/ethnic diversity in Malaysia, it seems that the development of a truly "Malaysian" counselling approach would not be possible (Scorzelli, 1987), but this view seems premature and more recent developments such as those reported in Moodley, Rai, and Alladin (2010) have yet to filter through to Malaysian counsellors. However, dealing with the current Malaysian situation, most experts believe that counsellors trained in Western countries must be able to adapt the theories, skills and Counselling Psychology Quarterly 175 techniques to suit the social and cultural norms of their clients (Ismail & Othman, 2001;Othman & Aboo Bakar, 1993;Pope, Musa, Singaravelu, Bringaze, & Russell, 2002).…”

Do public universities have more effective counselling services than private universities in Melaka?

“…It should be noted that previous studies in Malaysia were focused on the services, roles, functions and skills of counsellors in schools (Salleh, Latif, Bahroom, Ahmad, & Muhammad, ; Scorzell, ). There are also a number of international studies on this topic, such as those undertaken by Leung et al (), Peelo and Wareham, (), and Brian and Brunt Van ().…”

From Colonialism to Ultranationalism: History and Development of Career Counseling in Malaysia

“…The government, therefore, also views the expansion of higher education locally as a means of reducing foreign exchange outflow. 268 The Career Development Quarterly Cultural Elements That Affected Career Counseling Scorzelli (1987) stated that it is "unlikely that family therapy in the Western sense will ever be an important part" (p. 240) of the counseling profession in Malaysia. He goes on to say why, stressing the issue of "loss offace" for the head of the family.…”