International Education Studies; Vol. 7, No.

13; 2014
ISSN 1913-9020 E-ISSN 1913-9039
Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education

Family Counseling in Malaysia: Current Issues and Practices

Norhayati Mohd. Noor1
1

Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia

Correspondence: Norhayati Mohd. Noor, Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM
Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia. Tel: 603-8921-6233. E-mail: [email protected]
Received: July 22, 2014
doi:10.5539/ies.v7n13p33

Accepted: November 5, 2014

Online Published: December 21, 2014

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ies.v7n13p33

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.
Keywords: Malaysia, family, family counselling, counselling, current issues, current practices
1. Introduction
In Malaysia, family counselling in community counseling is needed in order to boost personal development and
harmony of all individuals and community (Ahmad, 2007). Family counselling is a process to encourage family
growth, instill mental health and good communication (Salim, 2006). In family counselling every family member
has the opportunity to voice out their problem and dissatisfaction towards their problem (Ismail, 2000).
Therefore the problem needs professional help from relevant agencies in the community and professional
counsellors.
Family counselling abroad able to increase the competitiveness of a family, improve the students misbehavior
and help in their healing process (Milliren & Barrett-Kruse, 2002; Keith, 2001; Herbert, 1989). Besides, family
counselling should focus on how to tackle children with disabilities, special needs and the clever ones. Therefore
family counselling is offered actively at all settings like school, hospital, community centres. Stinchfield (2004)
did a study on how family counselling is done at home and gave positive impact on family harmony. On the
other hand, family counselling in Malaysia is offered by government agencies like Ministry of Women, Family
and Community Development, state religious agencies (especially Negeri Sembilan) and NGOs. Meanwhile in
school, family counselling is stated being offered but there is no record or document on how it is actually being
implemented.
Like in the West or other Asian countries, the need for family counselling is high in Malaysia and demanding by
the community in handling all sorts of issues and challenges in a family (Rozman et al., 2003). Therefore, the
increase of services for family counselling, prefessional counsellors in family counselling and community
centres for family counselling is not something that can be taken lightly. Services that are family based like
family counselling are much needed and to be offered widely. Nowadays the Malaysian community is open to
the approach of counselling in handling social problems thus it is possible that family counselling can be a
primer need for the society in Malaysia especially in handling varieties of social issues and mental health.
Lew and Bettner (1999) stated that a family does not only need family counselling when there is a major crisis,
but minor ones do require similar attention like unable to apply positive attitude for a family member. According
to him, although there is one family member who misbehaves, the effect is huge enough for the whole family.
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Suradi (2006) supported this by saying that family counselling is useful in:
Handling increasing problem of a family member or more who influence childrens problem, anger or depression
of a parent.
Handling changes in family or relationship like divorce or a child leaving home.
Handling cultural sexual conflict and inter cultural between family and community at large.
Discovering satisfaction in relationship.
In Malaysia, studies related to family couselling are minimal. However there is a relevant study done by Saedah
Ghani 2004 entitled effect of family counselling on family adjustment, cohesion, problematic behavioral
environment and early independence of problematic teenagers. The purpose of the study is to test the
effectiveness of family counselling in handling the issues of problematic teenagers and improving on the
independence issue, family adjustment, cohesion and environment. The researcher used experimental design to
observe the effectiveness of family counselling. In the study, the researcher compared the individual counselling
in family and the family counselling with systematic approach. The result shows that the family counselling is
more effective than individual counselling in solving family problems. In order to solidify the past studies, the
present study is carried out to highlight the issues and practices in family counselling.
2. Methodology
The study is a case study that explores practices of counsellors who are active players in family counselling with
the pursuit of strong family ties. Qualitative approach through few data collection techniques are done in looking
at the phenomenon of counsellors practices in counselling sessions from the start until the end. Collection of
data was done through interview, observation and document analysis as usually carried out by qualitative
researcher, with 12 family counsellors. Data from the interview was transcribed in verbatim form by the
researcher and 2 assistants of counselling undergraduates. Transcript in verbatim form was shown again to the
participants for verification and validity. Data from the observation was not transcribed but the researcher made a
check list for the observation. According to Pratt and Dolbin-MacNab (2003), not all data in qualitative research
need to be transcribed; only the main data needs to be transcribed. Support data or data for triangulation does not
need to be transcribed. The researcher used NVivo8 as a tool to organize the transcribed data. Using themes and
sub themes, the researcher managed to study the transcript inductively and deductively repeatedly (Merriam,
2009). The researcher was able to apply the relevant theories and literature review to ease the understanding
process of the verbatim and give ideas on constructing the sub themes.
3. Research Findings
In the study, the themes that are related to the issues and practices in family counselling are children issues, the
use of individual theories in family counselling and the techniques used in the practices of family counselling by
counsellors in Malaysia.
4. Issues in Family Counselling
Research findings show that the children issues are the most popular one in a family counselling session. The
children issues that often highlighted in the sessions are school truancy, studies problem, theft, drug addiction,
smoking, illegitimate pregnancies, rape, loitering, running away from home, social ills and deviant behaviour.
According to one counsellor, parents will bring along their children for family counselling session when they are
unable to control and monitor their childrens behaviour.
Just being lazysome are wildwild meansthey liedlike going to a tuitionclassfrom primary school to
secondary school, there are the criteriagoing to a tuition class but going to a shopping complex, cyber
cafsome of them are standard 6, form 1but the mother brought him along since he was standard 5. He is
what people called beggar, stubborn and wildlove bite was found when he returned homelove bite
Drug addiction and smoking are infamous issues that have been terrorising families and societies in Malaysia for
a long time. In this study, family counselling received cases of children with drug and smoking problems in
accordance to the out of control children act 2001. The involved children with such problems are mostly caught
by the authorities and sent to Social Welfare Department. These kids are convicted with the 2001 act and their
cases are handled by the relevant officers and counsellors (under family counselling). This issue has been
explained by the counsellor on duty at Social Welfare Department.
The Paroi casemost cases involving drugs, horse pills, and others related to those
Therefore, in this study of family counselling, there are a lot of issues related to children and their negative
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attitudes which jeopardize the harmony of the family. Children are portrayed as the individuals that need help in
making behavioural changes in order for the family to function well.
4.1 Family Involvement in Family Counselling
High commitment of family involvement is much needed in family counselling. This is because family
counselling differs from individual counselling whereby in family counselling the presence and commitment of
all family members are required and sometimes even involving the grandparents and other relatives (according to
the participants of the study). The distance of the counselling centre is one of the issues brought up by the
families when it comes to their commitment in attending a family counselling session.
Thank god it is nearbyits UiTMLenduquite near to process..because hes neareasyif hes in
UM..UUMmaybedifficultdue to travellingtakestimethis is not difficultbecause hes in ITM
Lendunearhe can run to one class or two just like thatmaybe easy
When the distance between counselling centre and the childs learning institution is near, it is possible for the
child to attend the family counselling session.
Meanwhile, the familys understanding on counselling is also an issue shared by the participants. When the
family understands the concept of counselling even a bit, they will give commitment in the family counselling
process. The participants commented that the familys level of understanding relates to their education level.
Their education level can be a measurement of familys involvement and commitment, hence a family with good
academic background will understand the need of family counselling for them and easy to cooperate with the
counsellor.
He has good academic background, thinks well and open mindedso educated family when they have exposure
on family counsellingabout family counselling or heard any useful info he might comebecause he
understands that service to help and counsellor..can attach with everything without extra time and can listen to
each othereasy for discussion to happen.
4.2 Counsellors Competency in Family Counselling.
In the study, all participants admitted that counsellors who handle family counselling must have high level of
competency. This is becuase helping a conflicted family is a challenge. Every family has their own conflict and
story in their daily life routines and the cause that ruins their harmonious life. Thus, the participants think that a
family counsellor must have the knowledge, language, networking, interest, habits, experience and
profesionalism in family counselling.
The first challenge is knowledgeokayif the counsellor does not have enough knowledge in doing family
counsellingmaybe in the form of individual counsellingfamily counselling is differentsecondly is
skillsvariety of skills to get closer to the family systematically and the skills to approach the sub system of
each individual in that familymaybe the first child is talkativethe third one is quietso counsellor must
have skills to give room to the family members or other sub systems who come
In the study, the counsellors admitted that they are lacking in terms of the necessary education and training in
family counselling. One of them said that family counselling is just a subject with 3 credit hours. He added by
saying that family counselling should be offered as a course so that they will have wide knowledge on the field
and master it well.
I think like in the university, there is none except general counselling like in USIM, really learn about family
counselling because I think this is needed because usually in year 2 there is a paper with 3 credit hours and it is
not enough, because we are taught in individual counselling but we need to have other approaches in family
counselling because for individual counselling we will focus on one person only..about his feeling. But in family,
what about each family member? Because if we talk like that, a family member might be isolated without
realizing it. So it is important to have a specialised family counselling. So I think a special paper, not just a paper
that covers allnot enough
According to the counsellors in this study, lack of education and training leads to lack of knowledge. As a result,
they are not confident in handling family counselling and at a wits end. For those who are new and lack of
experience, they also admitted that they are not confident in handling family counselling especially facing
families with critical conflict.
because I used to have no skill at allwhen we come both partiesquarrelling in the room and we dont
know which side to listen tobecause they are really angry

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4.3 Use of Individual Counselling Theories

In the study, there are four approaches of individual counselling: Gestalt approach, REBT, Reality and
Transactional. Out of 12 counsellors, only 2 of them did not use any individual theries for the individual
counselling.
The most popular theory among the counsellors is the REBT theory as in handling family counselling. Generally,
the theory is chosen because they believe that harmony of the family is shaken when there is a family member
with irrational thinking. Thus all practicioners explained that when this theory is used for the family, the family
will think rationally and emotional stability will occur resulting a happy family.
If not, I like to use REBT...because there are few things...in some cases the husband feels he should be respected
and when the wife wants to express an opinion, he feels she is against him. And we will say in certain situation,
do you agree? Are you happy?...sometimes, the husband is too defensive and if challenge him, he will get angry.
So we will use the scale to measure his anger and see what ticks him off? So we will know how serious he is...
The result findings show that the Reality approach is used by three of the counsellors in the study. The focus of
the theory is the basic human needs especially love. Love in a family is vital and must exist for the harmony of
the family. This theory is able to make the family to focus in the future and leave the past.
Some of them I use the reality theraphy theory...basic need, if wefor example love, belonging, such as if we
love our wife...what to do...if we love a lot...what will happen...because for me in my family I would stress my
love when I say hi...say hi with love...speak with love...feel it...cookcook with loveso we will really into it
until we dont have the heart to betray to lie to do bad things...especially basic need and counsellor has many
roles here, must have sense of humour, not too much...must have somesometimes the client is too serious we
need sense of humour...joke a bit...he will not feel so stressed so he will open up a bit, wants to share...
Transactional theory is also used by the counsellors because they think the problems in the family are caused by
communication factor between the parents and the children. The counsellors think when the miscommunication
happens in the family, it is easier to use the theory in helping the family in family counselling. For them, TA
provides an easy path to understand the miscommunication in the family.
Sometimes we consider the communication and transactional part...we show, if the parents say like this, how the
children respond? From that, we can see, there is miscommunication...for communication I like to use
transactionaleasy to see...
Lastly, the Gestalt theory is used by one of the counsellors. According to him, the theory is used in family
counselling, for divorce cases in particular. For him, the theory is able to help him handling family counselling
with divorce issues.
There are divorce cases...I use gestalt...
5. Discussion
The study shows that families in Malaysia will only get counselling service when the situation has become
critical. For example, when the children have illegitimate pregnancy, involve in drugs and play truancy. This
shows that Malaysians do not have the awareness about the importance of family counselling as a preventive
measure. Lew and Bettner (1999) stated that a family does not only need family counselling when there is a
critical problem, but also for the small problems like unable to mould positive attitude for a family member.
Although it might be only a member of the family, the impact on the whole family is huge. Even when the family
shows lack of support, less friendly, less emotional support, less communication with the children, most kids will
show problematic attitude (Santisteban, 1997).
Family is the dominant aspect in family counselling of this study. All counsellors expressed the same opinion
that family counselling process will be carried out with success when the family gives high commitment in the
session. When the family is committed, it is easier for the counsellors to help every single member of the family
(Kaplan, 2003). A study done by Holtzworth-Munroe et al. (1989) supported this finding by stating that a success
in family counselling depends on the involvement and determination of the family in therapy. Even the level of
education, family cohesion, ability to express feelings are the factors that influence the family counselling
process and this supports the findings of a study done by (Patterson 2009).
Education, training, knowledge and experience are vital aspects contributing to the competency of the
counsellors. The research findings show that education and training are the most challenging criteria for the
counsellors. The participants of this study admitted that the education and training in their degree and master
studies are not sufficient for them to handle counselling process efficiently. Based on the syllabus at all local
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universities, USIM is the only university that offers family counselling as a course at postgraduate level.
However there is no USIM graduate in this study as USIM graduates have just graduated and are not yet placed
in any government sector. The interviewed practicioners admitted that they used the basic skills in individual
counselling. None of them uses techniques like circular questioning which should be used in family counselling
(Patterson, 2009).
The study shows that new practicioners (with less of 5 years experience) are not confident in handling family
counselling process if compared to those who have more years of experience. Patterson (2009) stated that
experienced counsellors have a lot of information, integrated the information in actual family counselling and
have good instinct. According to him, family counsellors need 1000 to 1500 hours of practice session in order to
have the confidence in handling family counselling process.
The study shows that practicioners with postgraduate qualification (master level) and at least took a subject in
family counselling will be more knowledgeable and competent in handling a session. This finding supports the
past studies that say counsellors must have social and cultural knowledge on a society (Santisteban et al., 1997).
In Iran, the family counsellors must have the academic credentials at master and doctorate level with the license
produced by the government (Khodayarifard et al., 2007).
Therefore, future family counsellors must have suitable training. Otherwise, they will not use the family system
as intervention and more proned to use the individual system for the family (Graves et al., 2009). Patterson (2009)
also highlighted on the knowledge of family counselling as there are counsellors who still wonder what to do
with the family, what theory to use, which technique is suitable for the family and which intervention can be
used to help in achieving the familys goals.
In accordance to the studies done in the West, the aspects of the practicioners are the driving force behind a good
family counselling process. The required aspects are knowledge, personality, relationship, language, frequent
sessions and professionalism as recognized in this study, similar result to the studies done outside Malaysia.
Practicioners with competency in terms of knowledge (Kaplan, 2003), fluent in language (Perkin-Dock, 2005;
Odell et al., 1994), easy going personality (Kaplan, 2003), a lot of experience (Kaplan, 2003) and high level of
professionalism will guarantee a sucessful family counselling practice (Sporaowski, 1995).
Knowledge is the key factor behind a successful practice of family counselling. A family counsellor must have
knowledge on various fields like law, Islamic law on wealth and family, psychology and human development. In
the study, the practicioners reported that family Islamic law is a must because in some cases they are required to
handle divorce cases in family. The findings supported the study of Rozman et al. (2003) which found that things
dealing with family issues in Islam are needed in dealing with couples who want a divorce. Roszlina (2000) also
stated that family negotiators or the counsellors in Islamic law sector must have the knowledge of family law
besides the religious and counselling skills. They will assist in terms of explaining the rights after a divorce
happens.
Moreover, the practicioners reported that knowledge in counselling such as skills, approaches and
communication is important in ensuring the family counselling process goes well and efficiently.
Holtzworth-Munroe et al. (1989) mentioned that counsellors must have 4 skills: (i) have active role and able to
direct in counselling session, (ii) encourage changes, (iii) teach family and instill hope and (iv) provide natural
emotionto the family.
In addition, the findings show that frequency in handling session and experience are vital aspects in family
counselling practice. The findings support Kaplans (2003) study that emphasizes the counsellors with
knowledge, personality, interest, frequency in handling session and experience can influence the family
counselling process. The participants in this study agreed that experience in handling family counselling is vital
whereby at the beginning they do not have the self-confidence, yet the situation changes when their experience
increases after working for more than 3 years. The findings also support the study of Strozier et al. (2005) which
points out the not so experienced counsellors face difficulties in handling family counselling especially cases that
involved court order. According to Strozier (2005), there are two factors that make an experienced counsellor
capable in handling family counselling: (i) non experienced counsellors are worried and able to handle family
counselling well and systematically, (ii) experienced counsellors have many techniques, procedures and able to
develop good bond with the family.
This study shows that future challenges from the family will be cooperation and involvement of the family, their
attitude, financial problems, education and demographic background. When the family has less faith and
understanding in the counselling process, the process will not go well.Chen et al. (2001) said that clients with
less psychological awareness, having bad psychological problems and less faith in the relationship with the
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counsellor will need a long time to make changes in the counselling session.
High defensive attitude especially the head of the family (the father) will make things difficult for the
counsellors. This is because cooperation from the family members is needed in analysing, evaluating and
creating suitable intervention for the family issues. This study clearly shows that the father is the member in the
family with poor attendance rate and against the family counselling process. This is similar to the study of
Frieman (1994) in the US which stated that the father has the difficulty in attending the family counselling
especially when it comes to divorce cases. He pointed out that counsellors must have strategies in hand to
persuade the father to get involved in the counselling process. The strategies are sending all the information
about the children at school to both separated parents, making it compulsory for the father to help the children
with their homework and attend parenting seminars plus preventing the children being trapped in parents
conflict.
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