Counseling Psychology in Taiwan

On September 25th, I had the opportunity to present my research and background to first year students in Counseling Psychology and Educational Psychology at National Taiwan Normal University. The first 15 minutes of my time was spent just finding the most relevant Chinese characters to use to translate many key concepts in US psychology into Chinese. These include concepts such as discrimination, aboriginal, racism, ethnic identity, and acculturation. Even the term Asian American is not commonly used in Taiwan because such race-specific terminology is not as appropriate in Taiwan. People would want to know why you would not use Taiwanese-American for example. I was impressed by the questions and many of the comments. Counselor trainees in Taiwan are deeply concerned with whether or not a counseling program is stigmatizing or culturally-based. I appreciated the help I received from two outstanding students and the Professor in translating ideas into Chinese. I am continuing to learn more about how to think about Counseling from a purely Taiwanese perspective and to not assume that a Western or US approach can be applied and just tweaked until it fits. I look forward to more conversations about this idea.