Welcome to the 11th volume of Asia Pacific Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy! It has been a decade since the first publication of this journal. Continuous efforts of all our editorial board members, colleagues of Taylor & Francis, authors and reviewers, as well as support from our readers, are indispensable to the sustainable development of your journal. I am glad to have been your companion in the editorial process these past years.
This issue brings a series of impressive articles from Canada, Australia, India, Singapore, Malaysia and Korea. I hope that the innovative ideas presented in these articles will inspire readers in the discipline of counselling and psychotherapy.
It is known that counselling and psychotherapy sessions usually take place in a ‘secure’ place, such as a counselling or a psychotherapy room. It is refreshing when we read of alternatives – David Walters reflects on his clinical experiences in the use of museums and galleries as places for psychodynamic art therapy. His framework of psychodynamic art therapy emphasizes the possibility of using artworks to enrich projective conversations, bringing unconsciousness into consciousness, and hence this mode of encounter results in a therapeutic experience of art. Walters also discusses essential ethical and professional considerations in this specialized form of arts-based psychotherapeutic practice.
Not only are the psychotherapy venues can be expanded, but the methods used to enhance personal developments for counsellors in training are also considered with a need to involve up-to-date interventions discussed in the next article. Mindfulness as a psychotherapeutic intervention remains a hot topic. Mindfulness impacts on lives and contributes positively and influences our clients’ well-being. Mindfulness may also be applied to the field of initial counsellor education. Mark Pearson comments on the counselling interns’ direct experiences in practising mindfulness. He considers especially the inevitable struggles, efforts and challenges that trainee counsellors face and the role of mindfulness in assisting in the reduction of stress. The insights from this article provide valuable information about the benefits and potential obstacles of mindfulness practice, which may inspire both counselling educators as well as counsellor trainees. Mindfulness may facilitate reflective thinking and self-care in the personal growth of counsellor trainees.
A strong therapeutic alliance is crucial for positive psychotherapy outcomes. It is only when people with special needs are willing to seek help that counsellors and psychotherapists can use psychotherapeutic skills to facilitate in their healing process. In some cultures, such as in Indian society, the stigma of engaging with a counselling service remains a barrier that discourages people from looking for professional psychological help. People are afraid of being ‘teased’ by peers about seeking counselling service. Anuja S. Panicker, M. Samskani, S. Vimala, G. Poornima and Merlin Veronika explore the attitudes, barriers and perceived benefits of counselling services among undergraduate medical students in India. Their insightful findings bring implications to university counselling service providers when encountering the help-seeking needs of medical students.
Although modern society emphasizes equality, racial taunting often happens to ethnic minority groups. Their mental health issue is a significant concern. Thivya Pillai and Oliver Sündermann examine the level of racial teasing as it is experienced by ethnic minority and majority in Singapore. The relationship between the experience of distress due to skin colour is considered. The results in this article provide new insights to practitioners when dealing with racial teasing and body image issues.
In modern society, the increase in the divorce rate shows that marriage break-up is no longer atypical. Still, it can become a tragedy to the whole family, especially for teenage children living in a divorced family. The next paper reviews how parental divorce does have a stressful and traumatic impact on teenagers’ well-being. This study is conducted by Sarada Devi R.Subramaniam, Melati Sumari and Norfaezah Md. Khalid and suggests that teenagers could use social media for self-healing. Social media is explored as a way to manage their issues and learn to move forward with their own lives. Making use of technology in reaching out the target teenagers and introducing ethical online counselling services may become a new direction to support teenagers in divorced families.
Apart from divorce, domestic violence can also bring long-term impact on children. It is not easy for children to move forward after a traumatic experience. The concept of hegemonic masculinity is salient in many Korean families. Although the situation has improved in recent years, some younger generations were the victims of a hegemonic masculinity and experienced their fathers’ violence when they were children. Yoonhee Sung’s study investigates the mediating effect of fathers’ violence on young adults’ perceptions of their fathers’ gender role and ensuing conflict, paternal relationship and depressive symptoms. Implications for counselling and psychotherapy to help male clients who tolerate or perpetrate domestic violence are discussed in Sung's study.
Abraham Maslow once said in Towards a Psychology of Being, ‘I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail’. This issue reflects challenges and changes that counsellors and psychotherapists encounter in their practice from their own cultural and clinical context. Each new problem is a new phenomenon that could inspire practitioners to find new directions. Let us flow with challenge into change! We hope that this journal can provide researchers and practitioners with a channel to share their excellent ‘new ideas’ and visions related to counselling and psychotherapy practice. We hope you will enjoy reading this series of articles and gain new insights from this issue.