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Tradition and modernity: The cultural preparedness framework for counselling

in India

Article · January 2009

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 Tradition and modernity:
The cultural preparedness framework for counselling in India

Gideon Arulmani (PhD),

Chapter in Lawrence Gerstein et al (2010), International Handbook of Cross-

Cultural Counselling, Sage Publications, California

Page: 1
Introduction

The practice of counselling in India has a short history but an ancient past. I

begin this chapter with a brief overview of the present status of counselling needs and the

challenges that confront the practice of counselling in India. A significant portion of the

chapter is then dedicated to examining a frame of reference that could inform the

development of a model of counselling for the Indian context. An attempt at gaining

insights into the field of counselling in India would do well to take into account the

impact that philosophy, religion and spirituality have had on Indian culture. Indian

philosophy is replete with concepts and constructs, all of which could in someway be

related to assumptions that surround emotional well being. This chapter introduces the

notion of cultural preparedness as a theoretical construct to examine assumptions that

influence the practice of counselling in India. I will attempt to do this by delineating key

philosophic constructs, drawing upon illustrations from field research and my own case

records.

Counselling in India: Present status

Western, academic psychology was introduced to India about 75 years ago and at

the last count, 63 universities were listed as offering degrees in psychology, at

undergraduate or postgraduate levels. The focus of these courses has largely been on

educational, clinical, industrial, and the developmental branches of psychology.

Counselling psychology is a more recent addition to the group of subjects taught under

the rubric of psychology.

Counselling was recognised as an important service in India from as early as 1938

when the Acharya Narendra Dev Committee underlined the importance of counselling

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and guidance in education. Subsequently, various commissions from the early 1950s

have made strong recommendations for the formalisation of counselling services at a

national level. Bhatnagar (1997), in her review, pointed out that counselling and

guidance thrived and grew in India during the 1960s – 70s. Guidance and counselling

were considered to be new and emerging forces that were vitally important to the

education system. The same vigour was not seen between the late eighties and nineties

and interest in guidance and counselling diminished. Evidence of this decline in interest

is seen in the number of research studies available for review. While approximately 160

studies were identified between 1974 and 1987, barely 13 studies were identified for the

period between 1988 – 1992 (Bhatnagar, 1997). The recent past, however, has seen a

significant increase in the demand for counselling services at the national level. For

example, strong recommendations have been made for policy action to support

counselling services for adolescents (Report of the Working Group on Adolescence for

the 10th Five Year Plan, 2001). Counselling was also identified as an essential service by

the national framework curriculum review in 2005 (Position Paper of the National Focus

Group on Work and Education, 2005). The strongest attention toward counselling has

emerged from the school sector. During its 2001 national conference, the Central Board

for Secondary Education (one of the largest education Boards in the country), resolved

that it would be mandatory for all of its schools to have trained school counsellors.

Training opportunities have become available over the last few years that range

from full time post graduate degree programmes to certificates and diplomas. Post

graduate degrees in counselling are offered only by a small number of university

departments of psychology, education and social work. The National Council for

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Educational Research and Training (NCERT, Government of India) offers a post

graduate diploma in Guidance and Counselling. Private organisations offer post graduate

diplomas and certificates in specific branches of counselling. Certificate courses in

counselling are available through the distance education mode. The length of these

programmes range between short 10 day certificates and diplomas to full time two year

post graduate courses. Students have the option of specialising in a specific client group.

Some common specialisations are marital therapy, counselling adolescents, career

counselling, and educational counselling. The better courses require students to obtain

internship experiences in organisations that deliver counselling services. In addition to

facing written examinations, a common requirement is for students to submit detailed

case reports of a prescribed number of clients they have seen.

Against the backdrop of burgeoning counsellor training courses, is a worrying

neglect of quality. India has not as yet defined the parameters for counsellor

qualifications and ‘counselling’ is a term that is loosely used. The nature and scope of

counselling itself remains poorly articulated. Monitoring of counsellor training does not

occur in a systematic manner. Someone who has gone through a three-day ‘counselling

skills workshop’ could be referred to as a counsellor just as easily as someone else who

has gone through a two year programme. At present there is no licensing system for

counsellors.

A recent evaluation of the cultural sensitivity of existing curricula revealed that

very little has emerged in terms of Indian models for counselling (Arulmani 2007). The

attempt seems to have been to adopt (or at best adapt) Western concepts with little or no

consideration for ‘discovering’ new approaches and validating them for the Indian

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situation. On a more positive note, an emerging trend is a gradual move toward more

varied approaches to counselling. Although these courses are few and far between, they

have set valuable training objectives “to sensitise learners to the possibilities and

availability of alternate methods of healing with focus on indigenous and culturally

accepted/practiced therapeutic methods” (extract from course objectives, M.Sc. Holistic

Counselling, Bangalore University, 2007). Course content includes skills to use yoga,

reiki, acupressure, and meditation as counselling techniques.

Access to counselling services, however, is a matter of serious concern. Our

survey (Arulmani & Nag, 2006) of 12 different Indian regions reaching a sample of over

7000 young people revealed that less than 10% of this sample had access to any form of

counselling. These findings echo trends from the preceding decade where Bhatnagar and

Gupta (1999) found that formal counselling services were available only in 9% of schools

in India.

There is also a lack of clarity regarding the role of a counsellor. Referrals to

counsellors cover the entire gamut of mental health needs, ranging from severe psychotic

problems, to issues such as parenting concerns, childhood disorders, adolescent

difficulties and reproductive health (including HIV-AIDS related issues). Marital

discord, interpersonal problems, scholastic and educational difficulties, stress mediated

disorders, substance abuse, counselling for career development and questions about

sexual orientation are other kinds of referrals a counsellor might receive.

Finally, the need for counselling in modern India manifests itself against a

background of social change, the nature and pace of which is unprecedented. A decade

of economic reforms has pushed India towards becoming one of the world's fastest

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growing economies. This in turn has given the need for counselling a new complexion.

The ripple effect of a rapidly globalising world, increasingly coming under the control of

the free market economy has also arrived at the door step of the Indian counsellor.

Economically empowered Indian women, for instance, no longer need to silently accept

abuse and disregard. Age old values are now questioned. The belief that marriage is a

life long commitment, for better or for worse, for example, is no longer as unshakable as

it was. Marital discord is on the increase, as are divorce rates. The Indian middle class

high school student is typically required to put in almost 16 hours of study a day, in order

to beat the competition and win a seat in a course leading to a degree in engineering or

medicine. Counsellors are repeatedly presented with young people who were forced to

choose careers that were popular and ‘in demand,’ but who soon discovered that their real

interests and talents lay elsewhere. Increasing numbers of young workers show flagging

motivation and often express the desire for a career shift within the first year of working.

On another plane, ‘development’ has become a double edged sword, benefiting a few but

exploiting a large number only for the ‘cheap labour’ they offer. Aggression and violence

fed by resentment are increasingly seen. These are examples of the complexities that the

counsellor practicing in India faces today. I will examine the issues that surround the

practice of counselling in contemporary India, in further detail in a later section.

Counselling in India: Questions of relevance and suitability

Counselling, as it is understood within the framework of Western psychology, is

of recent advent in India. Indian scholars have consistently pointed out that modern

Western psychotherapy and counselling have at best a tenuous foot hold in India (e.g.

Neki, 1975). One of the reasons for the apparent failure of counselling to ‘take’ in Indian

Page: 6
soil could be that the development of psychology in India has been a largely Euro-

American enterprise (Dalal & Misra, 2001). These arguments point to deeper questions

related to the relevance and appropriateness of Western counselling frameworks to non-

Western contexts.

Historically, psychology in the West actively sought to distinguish itself from

theology and metaphysics, separated itself from its earlier preoccupation with the “soul,”

and oriented itself instead to the study of “behaviour.” It committed itself to the

epistemology of logical positivism and chose as its tools the inductive process of

scientific reasoning. The discipline of counselling psychology emerged from within this

framework, in direct response to psychological needs that had their roots in the Western

socio-cultural milieu. This continues to be an ethos that is founded on materialistic

individualism: a culture that celebrates the individual’s freedom for self-determination.

The notion of cultural preparedness is critical here. Methods of counselling that

emerged in the West were created by members of a particular culture in response to needs

expressed from within this culture. The approaches were in effect developed by a people,

and for a people, with certain cultural orientations. One of the reasons for the success of

these approaches could be that both the creators of the service and the consumers of the

service have been culturally prepared in a closely similar manner to offer and partake of

the service. They share a similar vocabulary of values and cherish a particular approach

to life. It is against this background of cultural preparedness that counselling techniques

could be developed and were necessary and sufficient for the Western context. The key

point to be noted is that the same conditions may be neither necessary nor sufficient for a

people from a different cultural heritage. A counselling approach that is empirical and

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individualistic in its orientation, for example, may not find resonance amongst Indians,

whose culture has prepared them over the ages to approach their existence in an intuitive,

experiential, and community oriented manner. To flourish in the contemporary,

globalised context, counselling psychology cannot be viewed solely, or even primarily as

a Western specialty (Savikas, 2007). If these critiques are to be addressed it would be

necessary to examine subjectivist versus objectivist epistemologies with a view to

building bridges that would allow counsellors from different persuasions to function in

tandem (Laungani, 2005). This chapter argues that cultural preparedness must be

considered in order to sharpen the relevance of a counselling approach to a specific

context.

Social relations in India: Three key characteristics

Culturally prepared to abide contradiction

A discussion pertaining to counselling in India would do well to concern itself

with the questions that surround diversity. The source of this diversity has its roots in

India’s ancient past. The landmass that today is called India was gradually populated

over two thousand years by people from diverse backgrounds through a natural process

of migration and trade relations, as well as through numerous aggressive invasions. As

groups of people from other regions of the world settled in India, they brought with them

their own traditions, social norms, rituals and ways of living (Thapar, 1966). Notably,

diverse groups seem to have learned to coexist rather than merge. Terms such as

‘encompass’ (Dumont, 1970) and ‘enfold’ (Sinha & Tripathi, 2002) have been used to

describe this process whereby people retained their cultural characteristics while

simultaneously living in accord with those whose cultures were dissimilar from their

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own. Over the ages, this has led to the gradual evolution of a cultural atmosphere that

has allowed for the coexistence of contradictions (McKim Marriot, 1989; Sinha &

Tripathi, 2002). This deeply ingrained toleration of ambiguity seems to be the thread that

draws together the diverse elements that compose Indian culture. The following detail in

the history of India’s independence struggle provides an apt illustration.

It was the 8th of August 1942. The ‘Quit India’ resolution had been passed by the

All India Congress Committee marking another phase in the civil disobedience

movement across the country. Massive strikes were organised that brought the vast

calico textile industry in Western India to a grinding halt. Factories were closed.

Workers refused to join duty. Tension was in the air. Within this environment, charged

with discord and hostility, occurred an interaction between two men. One of them – the

owner of a textile mill that had been shut down – took it upon himself to care for the

wellbeing, ease and even sought the counsel of the very man who was responsible for his

worries. And the instigator of all the trouble on his part lavished praise and expressed his

admiration of the mill owner. This instigator was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi,

revered in India as the ‘father of the nation.’ The viewpoints that these two men held

were contradictory and perhaps irreconcilable. They were in fact adversaries. Yet they

seem to have been able to compartmentalise their sharp disagreements and sustain a

meaningful personal engagement. The interaction between Mahatma Gandhi and the mill

owner reflects a cultural process that allowed (or perhaps required) them to abide

contradictions. Interactions between individuals and groups in India are embedded

within a cultural matrix that allows for relationships to be formed and maintained despite

ambiguities and oppositions.

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Culturally prepared for Individualism, collectivism or something else?

Indian culture is commonly described as being collectivistic. However, Indian

studies throw a different light on this view. Sinha and Tripathi (2002), moved away from

the individualism-collectivism (I/C) dichotomy and created a questionnaire that offered

three alternative statements. The first and second alternatives addressed I/C respectively

while the third alternative offered the respondent a mixture of individualistic and

collectivistic elements. Their findings indicated that the majority of their participants

demonstrated mixed orientations. Similarly, Arulmani and Nag (2006) found that Indian

orientations were not individualistic versus collectivistic, but were in fact a combination

of the two. To illustrate, I present below extracts from the responses of two participants

from our surveys (Arulmani & Nag 2006) to the sentence stub: “I want to be….”

“A perfect woman as well as a perfect architect. First I am a girl and then an architect.
I will achieve this…”
17 year old girl, middle class family, from a mid sized town in Eastern India.

“I want to be a police officer. This will realize my dream and the dream of my father of
seeing me in uniform. We are four sisters. I want to give ‘something’ to my parents as a
‘son’ might have given. People should not sympathise with them for not having a son…”
16 year old girl, low income family, from an urban slum, in a large South Indian city.

The point that seems to emerge is that Indians are collectivistic with reference to certain

cultural constructions but they are individualistic with reference to other engagements

with life. The primacy of the family and caste and kinship bonds could be examples of

collectivist orientations. Beyond this, individualism seems to dominate. The common

thread that runs through the responses of the young people cited above is their struggle to

blend the assertion of self on the one hand, with family values on the other.

The centrality of religion and spirituality

Page: 10
 Religion occupies a central position in Indian culture. Almost all aspects of life

have religious connotations and are coloured by religious beliefs. For example, most

forms of classical Indian art have been inspired by religious themes. Almost all

initiations (e.g. building a house, beginning a business venture, opening a university)

would invoke the gods and ask for their blessing. India is home to some of the major

religions of our civilisation and is a religiously diverse country. Each religion,

surrounded by its own unique culture propagates a certain way of life. The objective of

this chapter is not to look for the interface between religion and counselling. My attempt

instead is to derive principles that could be integrated into a counselling approach that is

sensitive to cultural preparedness by examining how common cultural practices prime a

person to engage with life. Hinduism pre dates the advent of other religions in India and

is today practiced by more than 80% of the population. Several aspects of the Hindu way

of life have permeated the Indian peoples’ engagement with life, irrespective of their

religious persuasion. Ideas and constructs that originated in Hindu thought have over

time been assimilated into Indian epistemology and today have a strong influence on

Indian culture. The following section will use some of these ideas to articulate culturally

attuned counselling approaches for India.

Five key constructs related to counselling from Indian epistemology

Self and the other: Separate but interrelated

The most fundamental aspect of the Indian view rests upon the postulation that

boundaries between the self and the other are porous. The individual and the cosmos, the

self and nature, the person and society are all perceived as being a part of a single

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continuity. Such a world view presents a platform upon which separateness as well as

interdependence can be simultaneously expressed.

Dharma: The code of duty

Relationships between self and other are governed by the principle of dharma –

an ancient concept that seems to have been first articulated two millennia ago in the

Rigveda. In a cosmic sense, dharma underlies the harmony seen within the natural

world. In its most common usage dharma is understood as the ‘appropriate way of

living’ and the ‘correct conduct’ to be exhibited in different situations. Disturbance of

dharma or the lack of adherence to dharma leads to psychological and physical

discomfort and distress.

Varna and guna: Occupational classification based on personality types

Varna is the precursor of caste and was originally intended to be a system of

occupational role allocation. Allocation of work responsibilities was originally based on

a four-fold classification of occupational roles: brahmin, kshatriya, vaishya and shudra.

The triguna theory is a three-factor description of personality types. Accordingly, the

human personality comprises three gunas or qualities – sattwa, rajas and tamas. This

was the basis for guiding young people toward occupations for which they were suited.

The ashrama system: Developmental stages

The ashrama system describes a stage-wise unfolding of an individual’s life. This

system takes a life-span approach and provides guidelines for fulfilling specific aspects of

one’s dharma and varna as one progresses through the stages of life.

Samsara and Karma: Cyclical conceptions of personal responsibility

Samsara describes the cycle of life and depicts the manner in which life begins,

progresses, ends and begins once again. The doctrine of Karma Yoga qualifies the

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manner in which the individual engages with his or her duties, roles and responsibilities.

Accordingly, engagement must be complete but must be characterised by nishkama – the

absence of passion. The motivation to work is not what one gains from it. Instead, one is

required to perform one’s duty with the highest degree of effectiveness, without being

driven by self-centered desires. Taken together samsara and karma describe life as being

a cycle that perpetuates itself (Pederson 1979). Karma is a thread that draws the past,

present and future together. The actions of the past qualify the present and the actions of

the present qualify the nature of the individual’s future existence.

Philosophic notions or realities in daily living?

Indian scholars have found that these concepts have a significant bearing on

everyday life in the Indian context. Sinha (1969) examined the aspirations of rural

Indians. He reported that when asked to describe a ‘happy life,’ his respondents referred

initially to materialistic endeavours but quickly began to equate happiness with religion

and spirituality. Roy and Srivastava (1986) conducted a series of open-ended interviews

with individuals and groups from rural backgrounds in North India. The sample included

different castes as well as a cross section of Muslim groups. Content analysis of the

responses revealed that although these were semi-literate people with no access to

philosophic texts, their view of life was a reflection of dharma, karma, samsara and

nishkama which seemed to be integral to their orientations to life, work and interpersonal

relationships. For example, one of the respondents – a farmer, held the view that total

“immersion in dharma,” would lead to contentment. Another is reported to have said:

“God gives rewards and punishments according to a man’s karma…” Concepts such as

these have their roots in India’s ancient past and represent traditional India. The question

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that surfaces then is: Does this traditional approach to life continue to influence lifestyles

in modern India?

Contemporary India

Contemporary India evokes images of, a booming information technology

industry and an economy that is growing at an unprecedented rate. Economic

development has triggered tremendous social change. The need for counselling in

contemporary India manifests within a social, cultural and economic ethos that this

country has not experienced before. I present an excerpt from my case notes to illustrate

the challenges that face the discipline of counselling psychology in India.

This was an interaction with a 24 year old woman working as a Call Centre Agent

in a Business Process Outsourcing company. She came from a traditional Indian middle

class home and had grown up in an urban environment. She held a bachelor’s degree in

commerce. Given below are excerpts reconstructed from my case notes of my first (and

only) session with her.

Client:
Some of my friends have come to you for help to leave their job as call centre operators.
But I don’t want to leave. I am happy with the job. I earn well. I want to know how to
come up in this job and reach the top in this job.

Counsellor:
How have you done at your job so far?

Client:
Average. I should have risen higher by now. I am more or less where I started. My
performance appraisal said I get irritated with callers. That’s why I have come to you.

Counsellor:
What makes you irritated?

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Client:
I don’t like answering only to people’s complaints. The whole time I have to listen to the
complaints of someone from another country. You are a psychologist. You know how to
change my personality to suit my job requirement.

Counsellor:
Changing a person’s personality is difficult and most often not necessary. Your physical
and emotional health are far more important than your job.

Client:
I can’t leave this job. I have taken many loans based on my income. I will not earn as
much as I am earning now in any other job. I can’t quit. If you can’t help me change my
personality, then I will go to some other expert.

Counsellor:
Do you know of any one who can do that?

Client:
Yes! There are many experts. I know an astrologer who can do that.

Counsellor:
I can only help you learn to help yourself. I do believe that you can learn to help
yourself. What this means is that I am willing to work with you, but you are the one who
is really at the centre of our interactions. Think about what I have said and let me know
if you would like to continue.

The session ended on this note. The client did not return. Routine telephonic

follow up a month later indicated that she had indeed visited her astrologer who through

his divinations found that she was unsuited for the job that she held. He had advised her

to look for another job. My client took his advice, found employment as a receptionist in

a hotel and was now quite happy!

This case study provides an insight into psychological needs manifested in

contemporary India. It raises the question of a counselling paradigm that could respond

to these needs with effectiveness. It raises again the issue of cultural preparedness. In

this case, clearly, a therapeutic relationship was not forged and a number of questions

surface: How could the counsellor have been more effective? Would it have been

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possible at all to establish a counselling relationship with this young person on her terms,

rather than on the terms dictated by the school of counselling to which the counsellor was

committed? I was stung in the first instance by my client’s rejoinder that she would

rather go to her astrologer to find answers to her situation. And then my chagrin knew no

bounds when I learned that she had followed the astrologer’s advice! My initial response

of course was one of indignation. However, I gradually realised that this client was

embedded in a culture that was different from the culture that had spawned the form of

counselling I was trained to administer. I could (and did) of course say that the suitability

of this client was low for counselling! What I failed to consider was the possibility that it

was in fact the suitability of my form of counselling that was questionable for her. It

dawned upon me that my client did in fact receive a type of “counselling” from her

astrologer. This form of counselling did not have its cultural orientation in the tenets of

Western psychology. It was rooted in Indian tradition – a tradition of which both the

counsellor (astrologer) and counselee were a part. The astrologer delivered a form of

counselling for which the young woman was culturally prepared. It was to answer the

numerous questions that surfaced in my mind in response to experiences such as these

that I visited the consulting rooms of traditional healers. I briefly report below my

experiences in an attempt to further illustrate the notion of cultural preparedness.

Traditional approaches to ‘counselling’: A personal experience

My approach was to first ask my client group the following question: “To whom

do you turn when you or your family are in distress?” Their responses in fact reflected

the findings of a comprehensive survey that at some point in their lives more than 90% of

Indians use the services of the priest, the faith healer, the astrologer, the “holy man,” the

Page: 16
guru and a wide range of others who are sanctioned representatives of religion, including

practitioners of traditional methods of healing (Voluntary Health Association of India,

1991). I presented myself as client to six of the most well-known astrologers in South

India. While there were individual variations in the approach taken, the common

principles in their method pointed once again to a shared matrix of cultural preparedness.

My objective here is not to comment on the validity of these services. It is instead to

interpret my experiences within the framework of Western counselling to arrive at

insights that could be relevant to the practice of counselling in modern India.

The consulting chambers of each of these persons were filled with representations

of culture, religion and the particular specialisation of the astrologer, immediately

creating an ambience of tradition and spirituality. In all cases, I noticed that these

persons had gone through many years of rigorous training which began in their late-teens

and went well into their early adulthood. Training usually was under a guru (teacher)

who was a part of this tradition. The astrologer also had at his / her disposal a

compendium of astrological charts and ancient texts to which constant references were

made. In one case (the nadi form of astrology), the texts were beautifully hand written on

thousands of palm leaves. Each compilation referred to a certain ‘category,’ ‘personality

type,’ or ‘type of ailment.’ The nadi astrologer had inherited his set from his guru. This

body of knowledge was itself an object of veneration to which both the astrologer and I

were required to pay obeisance. All interactions were in the vernacular.

My first impression was that right from the outset, interactions were directive.

The astrologer presented him / herself as an expert in the field. The initial objective

seemed to be diagnostic in nature. I was asked a series of questions that included my

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biographical details and religious persuasion. My ambiguity regarding my religious

persuasion was accepted and classified with equanimity as a type of persuasion!

Interestingly, I was never asked what my difficulties were. Arriving at a diagnosis was

taken as the astrologer’s responsibility as well as a demonstration of his / her skill. In all

cases, the astrologer did arrive at a fairly accurate description of my life situation. The

astrologer listened carefully and through a series of successive approximations based on

the skilled use of leading questions, gleaned the information he / she required. Given

below is an edited excerpt from one of these interactions (translated from Tamil: a South

Indian language), that illustrates the interview technique.

Astrologer: Your facial expression tells me that you are stressed about something.
Correct?
Gideon: Yes.
Astrologer: One can be stressed about many things. You are stressed about your work
duties. Is that correct?
Gideon: Yes.
Astrologer: You have studied a lot for many years. Your work is not an ‘outside’ type of
work. It is in an office. It is with people and not so much with machines. Am I right?
Gideon: Yes, I work mainly with people.
Astrologer: Working with people could be of many types. For example, you could work
as a teacher or doctor. Your job is like what a doctor does.
Gideon: Yes. It is like a doctor, but I am not a medical doctor.
Astrologer: Alright. Are you saying that you work with people who have different kinds
of problems?
Gideon: Yes. But that is not the source of my difficulty.
Astrologer: Do you work on your own or do you have an office?
Gideon: I work on my own. I also have an office.

Astrologer: Are you doing two jobs or one?

Gideon: I do many jobs.

Page: 18
Astrologer: You are doing too many jobs. That could be the reason for your stress.
Gideon: I don’t think so. I like all the jobs I am doing.

Astrologer: We may like all the jobs we do. It is true you are in the stage of life when
you must work hard. But if we do not have a way of getting back our energy, we will
feel tired and stressed. This is a law of the universe. I have an idea of the source of your
difficulties now. Please come back after three days. I will meditate about you and check
the texts for the best solutions. There are solutions to all types of problems. Do not
worry. I am here to help you discharge your dharma.

The second step in the process was to present me with a description of my

physical and psychological vulnerabilities. I was given a concise diagnosis and prognosis.

The final step was devoted to curative and corrective aspects. A series of pujas (religious

exercises) were read out from the texts and explained to me. Some of them were

performed on my behalf by the astrologer. The interaction ended with a prescription of a

list of pujas to be performed with regularity for the next few months. Almost all the

interactions were interspersed with stories and folk tales to explain my life situation.

This report of my experiences highlights different aspects of cultural

preparedness. Each of the persons I met were members of the community, commanded a

high degree of respect, were revered and held in awe. Their methods tapped into

processes that are already an integral part of this culture. For example, the approach was

directive and oriented to giving advice. It was closely linked to religion. It was

deterministic in its orientation but at the same time laid emphasis on personal effort. It

was not oriented to the client’s problem but instead to his personhood both as an

individual and as a member of his community.

Cultural preparedness: Implications for counselling

Religion and Spirituality

Page: 19
 The primacy accorded to religion and spirituality is perhaps the foremost

representation of cultural preparedness in the Indian context. The almost invariable first

step for which the Indian is culturally prepared is to seek, in times of distress, the

emotional succour offered through religion and representatives of religion. The

implications of this aspect of cultural preparedness are profound for the development of a

relevant counselling strategy. The common Western understanding that these traditional

approaches are primitive and unscientific reflect a suspicion of methods that are

culturally alien. The loyalty of the masses to these methods has been routinely attributed

to ignorance and the lack of knowledge. Some scholars, however, have attempted to

draw a balance and argue that it is the scientists who are not able to transcend the

boundaries of their education to examine these alternate methods with equanimity (e.g.

Watts, 1975). Others have pointed out that these are ancient practices, distilled over

hundreds of years from the collective experience of the community, that in fact have a

high degree of efficacy at the practical and every day level (e.g. Kakar, 2003).

The Indian who approaches a healer comes from a background that venerates this

profession and views healers as representative of what is considered spiritual and sacred.

The nature of cultural preparedness, therefore, is that the individual is oriented to being

advised, directed and guided toward the solution of his or her difficulties. The Indian

would most certainly respond to exhortations that one should help oneself. But the

Indian is relatively less prepared to engage with a non-directive form of counselling that

does not give advice. The astrologer’s approach reported above was directive and advice

oriented, emanating from a cultural matrix that expected this approach.

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Abiding Contradiction

The Indian is culturally prepared to juxtapose opposites, strive to achieve a

synthesis and thereby create the space to tolerate dissonance. Culture sensitive

counselling would build this capacity and help the Indian counselee cope with situations

that are incongruous. For example, an Indian healer would use illustrations from

parables, stories from the holy books and folk tales that depict the gods, folk heroes and

other characters whom the Indian counselee is already culturally prepared to revere and

respect. The attention of the help seeker would be drawn to the principles that the

characters in the stories use to deal with contradictions and the help seeker would be

exhorted to emulate them. The counsellor who is responsive to the client’s cultural

preparedness would draw upon the wit and wisdom enshrined in the stories told by court-

jesters, poets and itinerant bards of ancient India. Tenali Ramakrishna, for example, was

a famous poet and court-jester in the 16th Century C.E and his stories are a wonderful

blend of humour and satire rooted in the cultural ethos of South India (Sastry, 2002).

Raja Birbal was the Wazīr-e Azam (grand vizier) of the Mughal court in the 16th Century

C.E. and his stories reflect the culture of North India and offer simple but deeply

meaningful insights into the complexities of life (Moseley, 2001). Indian epics, folk tales

and proverbs are excellent repositories of a folk approach to dealing with the

incongruities of life. They are a part and parcel of everyday life in India and have not

been adequately tapped as counselling tools.

Holistic conception of life

Traditional Indian approaches to healing perceive the person as a ‘whole.’ This

would include the physical being, as well as the individual’s mind, emotions, beliefs,

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spiritual inclinations, occupational status and all aspects of his or her existence. It also

would include the nature of the individual’s linkages with society and the relationships to

which he or she is bound. Ayurveda, an ancient and well established form of traditional

Indian medicine, provides detailed descriptions of how emotions are linked to physical

illnesses and that health is a function of maintaining the correct balance between the

individual’s physical self and aspects of his or her social interactions (e.g. Das, 1974). In

the Indian context, an approach to counselling that separates mind from body and the

individual from family would most likely fail to address the felt need.

Determinism

The philosophic constructs of karma and samsara are often described as a

fatalistic approach to life. The postulation that the present is determined by past actions

could evoke a sense of inevitability. However, an often ignored dimension of these

constructs is the emphasis on volition and effort. The notions of karma and samsara do

not negate the action of the free will. The exercise of effort in the present is linked to

future gain and development. Accordingly, the quality of future life could be influenced

and shaped by the manner in which one lives one’s present life. This emphasis on

personal responsibility offers a valuable pointer to counselling techniques that draw upon

the client’s cultural preparedness.

Life stage approach

The ashrama system links life’s purpose to life stages and offers a framework

within which to plan one’s progress through life. This concept has been drawn into an

Indian career counselling programme (Arulmani, 2007). The programme has been

named Jiva, which means ‘life’ in most Indian languages. Career is portrayed as an

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extension of life and is described as a process that unfolds based upon previous

development. The counselling method provides the young person with tools for

introspection that help him or her ponder over the purpose of work, one’s role as a

worker, and the manner in which one could engage with the world of work. It culminates

with the counselee plotting a career development chart that describes the different kinds

of jobs he or she would consider at different stages in life and the different duties he or

she would discharge as a working member of society as he or she grows through life.

The Jiva programme is an illustration of applying the principles of cultural preparedness

to develop a career counselling for the Indian adolescent.

Conclusion

My own decade-long practice of the discipline makes me wonder if counselling as

it is practiced today has any relevance outside urban, Westernised India, which is a

miniscule proportion of this vast and culturally diverse nation of over one billion souls.

While counselling in India may not have existed as a specialised discipline there has

existed a form of counselling that is ages old. It is essential that this fact is acknowledged

and accepted. If the attempt to establish counselling in India is merely an exercise to fit

into pre-defined descriptions of counselling, the resulting outcome would not only be

irrelevant to felt needs but would most likely fail to take root. In the light of the forces of

globalisation and the nature of social change today, the promotion of one method as

superior to another is ill-advised. Instead, the urgent need is to look for bridges between

epistemologies, always keeping the felt need in sharp focus. This writing has attempted

to point to the rudiments of a method that could build these bridges, suggesting that

understanding cultural preparedness offers a scaffolding for the implementation of

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counselling in India. This would require us to search existing epistemologies in the spirit

of discovery, to articulate concepts and methods in the language of contemporary India.

Staying within the theme of religion, I conclude with a personal story. Being of

the Christian faith, I went to the venerable institution of the church to be married. Since

my bride was from a different religious persuasion, the pastor sat us down and in a warm

and genuine manner asked her, “Are you willing to become a Christian?” We went away

to ponder over the implications of converting from one religion to another. In the

meantime, I met my wife’s grandmother. She had weathered loss of everything she held

dear by the devastations wrought by the partition of India. She was seated in her tiny

puja room, her little temple at home surrounded by many representations of god: little

idols, intricate paintings, incense and vermillion. I presented my case to her with

trepidation. Would I encounter religious norms once again? She gave me a long,

searching look and asked me three questions. “Will you learn Bengali (the family

language)? Do you eat fish (the primary diet of the Bengali)? and will you ask for dowry

(bride price)?” What a dramatic difference between the question the pastor had and this

eighty year old, conservative, Hindu woman. One set of questions laid down the law.

The other drew from the wisdom of the ages and confronted me with life.

If counselling is to flourish and grow in India, we first need to begin with

humility, set aside our assumptions and acknowledge that a given culture has been

already prepared in a certain way over eons of time to engage with the counselling

process. This would lay the foundations for a service that would blend naturally with the

orientations of a people.

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