Psychological counselling within the context of globalization and multiculturalism

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to make a general assessment of the potential situations and issues that the psychological counselling field could face around the basis of the multiculturalism concept, which has become a current issue of social sciences because of globalization process. With this purpose, globalization process is initially examined in this study and social/individual problems that have increased in economic, social and cultural areas in the world are associated with the globalization. In this context, primarily the social dynamics of globalization process are explained and destructive effects of these dynamics over individuals are discussed. Secondly, With the purpose of contributing to the well-being of individuals who are exposed to the destructive effects of globalization, the last 50-60 years development process of psychological counselling, which is one of the applied areas of psychology, and also the problems that this area has faced in Turkey are briefly addressed. Lastly, the key roles that multicultural education aims to undertake to overcome "culture shocks" arising because of mobilization and migration are emphasized and the reasons of psychological counselling's emphasis on the culture-focused studies are examined. In this regard, the basic arguments of "multicultural" and "culture-sensitive psychological counselling" and also the views about basic counsellor skills have been evaluated. A design is tried to be formed about the future of psychological counselling as a discipline. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.