Cross-Cultural Counseling: History, Challenges, and Rationale

Internationalization of the Counseling Profession: Meaning, Scope and Concerns

“…These members further shared their concerns about "western-centrism," "U.S.A.-centered perspective," and cultural "imperialism" being practiced in the movement of internationalization. Such concerns are reflective of the caution expressed by various authors in the past and more so in recent years (e.g., Cheung 2000;Gerstein et al 2009a;Leong and Ponterotto 2003;Pedersen and Leong 1997).…”

“…Non-U.S. counseling professionals have also been actively involved in international work in the last several decades across the world, particularly so since the beginning of the century (Gerstein et al 2009a). Though internationalization of the counseling profession has now grown to be considered a movement, the meaning and scope of this phenomenon has yet to be clearly defined in the literature (Leung et al 2009).…”

“…Counseling professionals from the United States began engaging in international activities in the 1940s and the first decade of this century saw a dramatic increase in U.S.-based systematic organizational efforts to embrace international issues and collaborations (Gerstein et al 2009a). Non-U.S. counseling professionals have also been actively involved in international work in the last several decades across the world, particularly so since the beginning of the century (Gerstein et al 2009a).…”

“…The document sent to the panel contained a statement on the meaning and definition and a section on matters of scope and limitations, with 16 items used in an attempt to delineate scope. Particular limitations were added to the scope section, because four panel members had highlighted serious concerns about the biases and limitations in the nature and process of internationalization, which were reflective of the concerns raised by some authors (Gerstein et al 2009a;Marsella 2009;Marsella and Pedersen 2004). The document was mailed electronically to the panel for feedback in September 2010.…”

An Internationalization Competency Checklist for American Counseling Training Programs

“…Given the current trajectory of the internationalization of the counseling profession (Casas et al 2010;Gerstein et al 2009;), it can be expected that interest in programmatic and curricular implications of internationalization in counseling training will increase and that knowledge in this area will correspondingly expand. As such, future work should include revising and expanding the Internationalization Competency Checklist presented in this study.…”