The educational literature suggests that international contact contributes to a comprehensive educational experience. The Five Stages of Culture Shock examines an international shipboard educational program and seeks to identify specific insights resulting from informal extracurricular contact between students and host nationals in the context of culture shock experiences. Using the critical incident methodology, Pedersen analyzes students' responses to nearly 300 specific incidents which resulted in insights that apply to the students' own development, as well as the sociocultural context of the host countries. This use of critical incidents shows one way to evaluate and assess the subjective experiences of the informal curriculum. More broadly, the analysis sheds light on the concept of culture shock as a psychological construct.

There are more than 26 million refugees in the world, and the population is expected to grow. However, there is minimal training or understanding in the mental health and social services fields that provides the awareness, knowledge, and skills to effectively work with refugees. Subsequently, this volume is intended to provide a comprehensive understanding of refugee psychosocial adjustment that incorporates cross-cultural perspectives.

The text provides an all-inclusive overview of refugee acculturation and adaptation, a model of intervention to assist refugees in the process of psychosocial adjustment, case studies illustrating practical intervention applications, and country-specific interventions from unique and diverse national perspectives. Professionals working with refugees in the United States and around the world will value this volume.

This volume presents ways of thinking dramatically different from mainstream psychology, which is seen by many as primarily a product of Western civilization. Asian social psychologists in this edited collection apply Asian perspectives to issues of major concern in their societies, including parental beliefs about shame and moral socialization in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States; achievement motivation in Taiwan and the United States; and the effects of school violence on the psychological adjustment of Korean adolescents. Other chapters examine the role of social psychologists in Confucian societies, and group dynamics in Japan. The authors believe psychological research using an indigenous approach will enable Asian as well as non-Asian psychologists to understand the cognitions and behaviors of Asian people more accurately.

Scholars and students interested in Asian psychology, social, cultural and cross-cultural psychology will find this volume of interest.

This practical guide for developing and using culture-centered counseling and interviewing skills is by well-known authorities on the subject. This guide examines culturally learned assumptions that all of us employ in managing and interacting with others and uses models of synthetic cultures for students, teachers, professional counselors, and interviewers in raising questions, interpreting, focusing on and mediating in multicultural situations.

Until recently the field of psychology has been a monocultural science in a Euro-American envelope. Profound global changes in social, economic, political, and academic development have resulted in a more multicultural perspective for psychology. The field of psychology is now growing more rapidly outside than inside the U.S. As a result of these changes, multiculturalism adds a dimension to psychodynamic, humanistic, and behavioral psychology as much as the fourth dimension of time adds meaning to three dimensional spaces. The contributors to Multiculturalism as a Fourth Force seek to separate what we know from what we do not yet know about the importance of multiculturalism to these changes in the field of psychology. Topics include cultural diversity within and between societies, multiculturalism and psychotherapy, and culture centered interventions. Each contributor describes the need for multiculturalism in psychology, the difficulties in establishing a multicultural perspective and what has to happen before multiculturalism can claim to be a "Fourth Force" to supplement the other forces for psychology. In addition, the contributors examine the role of culture to the changing field of psychology and provide case examples of this phenomenon. It is the author's hope that by making culture central rather than marginal in the area of psychology, the psychodynamic, behavioral and humanistic theories can become more effective and less culturally biased.

In our present planetary crisis, communication across cultural lines has become vitally important. This volume on cross-cultural counseling is enormously valuable in contributing to that goal. It is broadly conceived, giving many individual perspectives on counseling with different ethnic groups; the methods available; the research which helps to clarify our understanding; and the status of education and training for cross-cultural work. It will help stretch the counselor's mind and heart. It will help to avoid the cultural encapsulation of the counselor. The editor and the many contributors are to be congratulated for their creative effort in bringing this book together. "Carl Rogers, Ph.D., Resident Fellow, Center for Studies of the Person"

This is a comprehensive and well-elaborated review of conceptual frameworks for counseling and therapy in cross-cultural problems. Most of the widely spread literature is organized into groups, methodology is presented in an even flow with access to diagnostic considerations, and the variety of racial and cultural parameters encountered in the subject is thus made clear. "Readings: A Journal of Reviews and Commentary in Mental Health"

Intentional Group Counseling: Best Practices for a Multicultural World provides students with essential best practices for conducting group counseling sessions in a diverse society. The text presents students with the latest research in applied psychology and group counseling, and also breaks down the complex art of leadership into individual skills using the Microskills approach. Embracing an experiential learning framework, students are guided through the practical application of learned Microskills in real-world group settings to further develop their competencies within dynamic environments. The book begins with best practices for intentional group leadership, ethics, cultural competence, and social justice in group work. Later chapters focus on listening and process skills, managing conflict and confrontation, and how to employ interpersonal influence to help clients explore logical consequences, group feedback, and meaningful reflection. The text closes with discussions of alternative theoretical approaches to group work, strategies for working with children and adolescents, and how to develop a personal leadership style. Designed to help future clinicians prepare to lead diverse populations through effective and profound group sessions, Intentional Group Counseling is ideal for courses in group work, group counseling, social work, and psychology.

This practical guide for developing and using culture-centered counseling and interviewing skills is by well-known authorities on the subject. This guide examines culturally learned assumptions that all of us employ in managing and interacting with others and uses models of synthetic cultures for students, teachers, professional counselors, and interviewers in raising questions, interpreting, focusing on and mediating in multicultural situations.

This is a comprehensive and well elaborated review of conceptual frameworks for counseling and therapy in cross-cultural problems. Most of the widely-spread literature is organized into groups, methodology is presented in an even flow with access to diagnostic considerations, and the variety of racial and cultural parameters encountered in the subject is thus made clear. . . . All the concepts developed in this book can be applied to a client population of a variety of ethnic groups.

"Readings: A Journal of Reviews and Commentary in Mental Health"

This handbook is intended to help meet the need for information on and training in cross-cultural counseling and therapy. Pedersen has provided a convenient reference source that reviews the history, present status, fundamental assumption's fundamental theories, and future directions of forty different specializations within the broad field of cross-cultural counseling. Each chapter is written by a recognized specialist in the field. The chapters are evenly divided into five parts covering perspectives, counseling methods, client populations, key issues of controversy and research, and guidelines for education and training. By including so many of the most prominent authors in one volume and by condensing their most important messages, the book becomes a virtual encyclopedia for a rapidly changing field.