Transferring Western counseling theories and techniques to Indian (or any other culture which is non-west) clients. India is a developing country with unique cultural characteristics. The current state of mental health counseling in India necessitates new laws, indigenous approaches, adaptations of culture-sensitive approaches, and research projects to validate such approaches. It is the job of mental health counselors to accomplish such complicated and trying tasks in the absence of social and fi nancial resources.
Counseling as a professional fi eld is just emerging in India and that too only in urban India. Even in urban areas, it is in an unenviable state. Not only is there no specifi city in the term or concept, but it is also used to denote a variety of activities performed by people in all kinds of situations, with different kinds of training, or even with no training at all! Students attend counseling for allotment of courses, a talk show host with no training at all counsels her guests, and a manager in the industry counsels his subordinate!
The functions of a counselor are not very well defi ned. There is no clearly understood and widely accepted role description of the counselor. What she does seems to overlap with the teacher, parent, boss, or friend. So how is she different from all of these people? In India, even now there are people who feel that a counselor is not necessary. They feel that we can solve our problems by ourselves. And to top it all, some very well-educated people do not even know what a counselor does.
There is no governing authority that would set standards for training and conduct of the fi eld. Counselors have no platform for expression of grievances, nor do they have a recognized professional organization like the RCI or MCI that would set standards for professional and ethical conduct.
Moreover, economic and social issues, poverty, and illiteracy have kept the fi eld of counseling away from the common man. Only the elites are exposed to a broader spectrum of the service professions. Only of late the family courts, educational institutions, and the industrial organizations are realizing the importance of counselors and the counseling profession.
In India we are passing through an unenviable phase of transition. There is a tendency to cling to past values and simultaneously crave for things, which are not consonant with the past values. This has resulted in an identity crisis, particularly of the youth. The changes in our social systems, the forceful advent of the Western media in our lives, and the world reducing to a global village is making people very anxious. This is actually true of today’s youth. They are torn between the values they are presented with and the values that they have been taught to uphold by their parents. This has resulted in uncertainty as to what values to hold and what to follow. Parents are their wit’s end. They are confused as to how to help their children; they are fi nding it more and more diffi cult to compete with the outside forces in controlling their children. This creates the parent-child gap that is tearing families apart.
The family is important to counseling in India, but the structure of family is changing. We have a wonderful tradition and culture in India. These traditions are being upheld on the outside where everyone can see, but within the family, life is showing signs of cracking up and breaking. There is an attitude that says, “I want others to see that I have a good family. I would prefer to have a dysfunctional family that nobody sees than to have a broken family or marriage that everybody can see, even if that means that the brokenness can be repaired. It is important for me to look good and proper in the eyes of my own larger family members and the society around me. So I sweep and keep all problems under the carpet. I keep doing it until it is too late and the bulge is visible to all concerned. Then I throw up my hands in defeat, then blame and defend myself.”
With the world around changing so fast, families in India are caught up among many developments for which they are not prepared. The difference in the pace of life, in values, and in the capacity to adapt differs between the parents and their children, but this is not attended to. As a result there is a great need for some kind of intervention and help. Especially now, with growing epidemics of physical and mental illnesses, there is much more need for this. Even the government is looking out for models of intervention and the counselors need to wake up and equip themselves if they want to impact the country in a very signifi cant way.
An issue that is causing rifts in family relationships is the breakdown of the joint family system, known traditionally to provide social and economic security to its individual members. The unit families are confronted with problems that they had not bargained for. This has meant for many people an increase in anxiety and stress resulting from uncertainty and isolation. The wisdom of the elders is no longer counted as one of our assets. It is a very sad situation. Thus for problems that can be easily resolved by the intervention of our family elders, now a resolution is sought in the courts or counselor’s offi ces.
Social change has affected not only family life but also several other things, for example, the status of women. This issue involves a change in several other types
of relationships as well. These include parent–child and husband–wife relations.
Many families today are characterized by a lack of understanding even when there is no open confl ict between the generations. Sexual relation is another area, which is not easy for the counselor to advise, in those families in which parents have one set of standards and the children another. An interesting phenomenon increasingly becoming apparent is “ascending education” in which the young become teachers of the old. It is not uncommon to hear from the young that adults do not know about new things and that they have to learn from them.
One aspect that is becoming increasingly important is our concern and anxiety for modernization. We are engaged in a drastic movement from traditional to the modern form of living, and by “modern” we tacitly mean westernized technological modes of living. Many aspects of this movement are of considerable concern to the counselor. What are the effects of this thrust? Is it true that the effects of rapid industrialization are seen in the disruption of interpersonal relations, an increase in crime, alienation of the youth, disrespect for elders, sharp increase in delinquent behavior, and other maladjustments? How should the counselor deal with this situation?
With advances in the fi eld of medicine, environmental hygiene, and better nutrition, man’s longevity has increased. Again, the breakdown of the joint family system has a great impact on the role and status of these older people in society.
Retirement from positions of authority and prestige can be a very devastating experience. How can the “retirement shock” be assuaged? The counselor’s role should be to assist the “senior citizens” to make optimum adjustment.
The tremendous technological progress has created problems for youth seeking employment as well as for the older people in employment. While the youth pass out from their education that has the latest technological advances incorporated into their curriculum, the older people have no idea of it. For example, the use of computers: they feel lost when asked to use a computer in their work. The youth on the other hand prove themselves very useful. But we cannot do away with the experience and wisdom of the older people. The management has a tough job when their offi ces are modernized with computers. They have to provide training for the people working there, which is expensive and time consuming. The counselor will, therefore, have to play the role of a cultural mediator and help individuals adjust themselves to the new conditions of living.
The next issue concerns decision making. In the Western culture, autonomy and independence and the ability to stand on one’s own feet and make one’s own decisions are stressed upon. Even if the student decides to take a year off his or her studies, the individual makes it on his or her own. But in oriental cultures in general, and India in particular, decision making is to a certain extent culturally determined.
A young man or a woman is expected to consult the adult members of the family in matters such as choosing a course of study, entering a specifi c occupation, or
choosing a life partner. The counselor should remember to include the parents and/
or other signifi cant members of the family when the client has to make a decision.
The counselor has to be mature enough to strike an appropriate balance and help the youth to have sound values. The counselor could have problems with his counselees who may be struggling with the new values and trying to cling to the past values. This may lead to a clash between loyalty to old values and the desire to pursue new values. The counselee’s value structures are thus of a crucial nature and the counselor has to work in terms of his or her own value structure, which may not be similar to that of the counselees.
As has been mentioned earlier, the attitude towards women has undergone a considerable change. They are no longer confi ned to their homes but are taking up careers, which earlier were exclusive only to men. The counselor, therefore, should not look askance at a female counselee who does not propose to enter into matrimony or one who proposes to enter such fi elds as mountaineering, forestry, and the like. The counselor would do well to present the facts in full and not try to infl uence the counselee.
The Indian attitude towards sex has been that it is looked upon as something intimate, precious, and sacred. It is not identifi ed with the fulfi llment of carnal desire. Premarital sex is considered to be a sin. Women are not expected to freely mix with men and they are expected to maintain a certain distance. Questions, such as what should be done about premarital sex, sex outside marriage, bigamous relations, etc. loom large. The bias in the favor of males in this regard is still upheld in most Indian societies. A man is virile but a woman is promiscuous. One should admit, though, that this attitude is fast disappearing in urban, educated societies.
Different standards for men and women create avoidable confusion, confl ict, and also crisis.
The counselor must necessarily widen his fi eld of work to include the new problems, which are surfacing as a result of rapid change. If the counselor is understood to be a culture interpreter, culture mediator, and an agent for culture change, he must necessarily move into a wider area (of human life) and make it the canvas for his work.
Training programs were once easily identifi able as subscribing to the tenets of a single theoretical base, such as psychoanalytic, humanistic, or behavioral. It is now somewhat rare to fi nd allegiance among all staff members to a particular counseling approach but even when there is, methods of instruction among faculty are likely to be more different than similar. One of the joys of the profession is that each of us is permitted to discover ways of helping others that fi t us best, as long as we maintain ethical and competence standards established by our peers.
Nevertheless, in spite of the variations in methods of instruction, approaches to counseling, and even personality styles of faculty, many departments do espouse a particular philosophy of counselor education. This mission statement may be
simply the requirement of an accreditation standard, or in many cases, it represents a well-thought-out summary of what the program intends to do and how these goals are to be carried out.