Family counseling in Malaysia: Current issues and practices

Abstract

The study is carried out to explore the issues and practices in family counselling among the family counsellors at few counseling centres in Malaysia. Qualitative approach of single case embedded units was used for the study. Data collection was done using in-depth interview, observation and document analysis with 12 family counsellors. The data collected from these interviews, observation and document analysis then analysed using Nvivo 8. The analysis highlighted themes like children issue, family involvement, competency of the counsellors and the use of individual theories. The study also shows that the family counselling prefer to use and focus on the individual counselling and not the system. Therefore training for the counsellors who are practising family counselling should be improved by relevant parties. Family perception that child as the individual who is the root of the problem (inditied patient) in the family should be erased from our thoughts. Family awareness that family counselling intervention is vital in strengthening the family institution and it is a needed intervention in developing excellent generation of Malaysians as announced by relevant parties for family development in Malaysia.