EXPLORING COUNSELLORS’ UNDERSTANDING AND PRACTICE OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELLING IN MALAYSIA

Background and Purpose: In order to make counselling meaningful and culturally relevant, it is essential for counsellors to have a practical counselling model that is context-specific and matches the needs and values of the population of that specific culture. Hence, the present research aims to explore professional counsellors’ understanding and practice of multicultural counselling in Malaysia.   Methodology: This study adopted a complementarity mixed-method research design using both qualitative and quantitative approaches to gauge the different features of multicultural counselling competency.   Findings: Malaysian professional counsellors, as a group, perceived themselves to be multiculturally competent. The most challenging cases encountered by Malaysian counsellors were (a) counselling culturally challenging clients (i.e., culturally different clients), (b) counselling culturally challenging issues/problems (culturally sensitive and complicated issues/problems in Malaysia), and (c) managing personal challenges (dealing with personal cultural and social issues in counselling). Thematic analysis also revealed three emergent themes to describe how Malaysian counsellors engage with culture and diversity in counselling and these themes broadly resembled the three stages of the general counselling process: pre-counselling, during counselling and post-counselling.   Contributions: This research adds to the multicultural counselling literature by generating knowledge regarding the understanding and practice of multicultural counselling in the local socio-political context. Education and training organizations should recognize the critical importance of infusing multicultural counselling education into all subjects and training programs in counsellor education programs and training of novice counsellors in order for it to be seamlessly incorporated into counselling practice.   Keywords: Culture and diversity, Malaysian counselling, multicultural counselling competency, multicultural counselling practice, multicultural counselling understanding.   Cite as: Mohd Jaladin, R. A., Simmonds, J. G., Greenway, P., & Barkatsas, T. (2021). Exploring counsellors’ understanding and practice of multicultural counselling in Malaysia.  Journal of Nusantara Studies, 6(1), 323-350. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol6iss1pp323-350