The Unheard Cry of a Successful Asian Psychologist

Developing Future-Ready University Graduates: Nurturing Wellbeing and Life Skills as Well as Academic Talent

Higher education is starting to embrace its role in promoting student wellbeing and life skills, especially given the concerning levels of poor mental health and uncertainties in the future job market. Yet, many of the published studies evaluating positive educational teaching methods thus far are limited to interventions delivered to small student cohorts and/or imbedded within elective wellbeing courses, and are focussed on developed Western countries. This study addressed this gap by investigating the effectiveness of an institution-wide compulsory course informed by the principles of Seligman's Wellbeing Theory. The course was delivered at a British university in a developing country in Southeast Asia. It purposefully sought to nurture growth-oriented outcomes (including self-awareness, positive emotions, and personal effectiveness) and was taken by an entire cohort of year one undergraduate students. We tested the effectiveness of the curriculum content and staff coaching style in achieving life skills, and evaluated how these perceptions influenced students' subjective wellbeing. A convergent mixed-methods design was used with 350 survey respondents and 11 interviewees. Perceived life skills scores showed a 2.5% improvement at the end of the course. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling tested the predicted relationships between variables. All relationships were statistically significant, but the influence of course design and educators' style on life skills acquisition (50.8% of the variance) was moderate, while the effect on subjective happiness and life satisfaction (4-5% of the variance) was very weak. Qualitative data indicated that while quantifiable benefits to wellbeing might not be immediate, students did anticipate longer-term benefits for happiness and life satisfaction. This finding suggests that such a novel educational approach is well-received by Asian students and may sow the seeds for future benefit by positively impacting on their skills, behaviours, attitudes, and values. To achieve optimal flourishing at university, we recommend exploring teaching practises that combine positive education with coaching psychology practises.

The Change of a Changer: A Single Case Study of the Indigenization of a Chinese Counseling Psychologist

Over the past several decades, the increasing popularization of psychological counseling has underlined a strong need for an indigenous approach to counseling. The current study adopted a single-case study method to construct a narrative of the indigenization process of psychotherapy in mainland China based on a comprehensive description of one prominent counseling psychologist's experience over the past half-century. Through interviews and records of fieldwork involving the psychologist (as the case) in 10 months between 2016 and 2017, the current study analyzed the indigenization process from the following three aspects: knowledge production, counseling practice, and student training. The findings showed that there was an underlying tension between the psychologist's traditional wisdom and his professional training in scientific psychology during the indigenization process. However, the findings of this study further revealed something missing from previous studies. First, the client-centered counselor did not assume "power" during counseling sessions, which differs from critical viewpoints in medical anthropology. Second, the students being trained underwent fundamental changes in values rather than learning a technique or resolving problems. Third, the psychologist's life history affected his thoughts and professional practice, which occurred in a sociocultural historical context. Finally, the implications for the future direction of the indigenization of counseling practice are discussed.