Through a cultural lens: school counselling and beyond

In this dynamic age, we live in a rapidly changing world characterized by globalization, the pace of which seems to continually accelerate. Multiculturalism has become normative as a result of globalization. Culture has various facets, from personal and interpersonal to familial, institutional, organizational, and communal; forming a multilevel system. A person’s culture can be defined by stage of life, gender, ethnicity, religion, social economic status, etc. It is the responsibility of mental health practitioners to develop sensitivity to cultural differences so that appropriate therapeutic approaches can be adopted to enhance the effectiveness of therapeutic outcomes. In light of this, it is crucial and necessary to draw attention to multicultural perspectives of counselling and psychotherapy. In this new issue, we bring together five insightful articles highlighting different therapeutic or psychoeducational approaches to supporting clients of different backgrounds. The issue begins with an article written by Claire Margaret Ryan, Campbell S Innes, Lee Kannis-Dymand, Jonathon Mason, and Geoff P Lovell, who investigate the efficacy of a psychoeducational programme for the members in community sports settings. Specifically, they assess whether a purposefully designed psychoeducational intervention can increase participants’ knowledge of mental illness, improve their attitude towards mental illness stigma, and encourage their help-seeking intentions. The positive outcomes suggest the potential of delivering brief psychoeducational programmes to the sports community as preventive interventions. Carl Lorenz G. Cervantes and Karina Therese G. Fernandez delineate and discuss a psychotherapy framework proposed by the Filipino psychologist Fr. Jaime C. Bulatao. His framework is guided by a Filipino worldview – transpersonal, emphasizing the perspective of shared collective consciousness and incorporating a conceptual model of telepathy into therapeutic processes. By interviewing licenced psychologists trained under Bulatao, the study explores the experience and phenomenological structures of telepathy in therapeutic settings. Schools are sometimes considered a microcosm of society, forming a unique culture. The remaining three articles are oriented upon school contexts. Tatsuto Yamada, Aya Sato, Yugan So, Kana Kobayashi, and Yashushi Fujii devote attention to the concern of absenteeism in elementary and middle schools. In particular, the authors systematically review assessments and techniques of cognitive-behavioural approaches to dealing with school absenteeism in Japan. They evaluate the cases in reviewed articles to examine the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioural approaches in ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF COUNSELLING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 2023, VOL. 14, NO. 1, 1–3 https://doi.org/10.1080/21507686.2023.2200270