The Development of Indigenous Counseling in Contemporary Confucian Communities

Abstract

In view of the limitations of mainstream Western psychology, the necessity of indigenous psychology for the development of global community psychology is discussed in the context of multiculturalism. In addition to this general introduction, four articles underlying a common theme were designed to discuss (a) various types of value conflicts between Confucian cultural heritage and Western individualism in an age of globalization; (b) the psychometric approach for measuring collectivistic conflict; (c) a counseling model of situational self-relation coordination for Chinese clients to handle interpersonal conflicts; and (d) the psychotherapeutic implications of various self-cultivation practices originating from the cultural traditions of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. The articles in this special issue may contribute to the development of indigenous counseling practice in multicultural Chinese communities.