LETTERS: I am a licensed and registered counsellor with Lembaga Kaunselor Malaysia (LKM), working mainly with students.
Even though I may not be an expert, I have more than 10 years’ experience in counselling secondary school students. More recently, I have been working with undergraduates from various colleges and universities.
Due to the number of clients we have to counsel, some of us are overworked. As a mental health professional, I go through an occupational hazard called “compassion fatigue” which, of course, is not peculiar to the profession.
There is certainly a need for more counsellors. So, it is heartening to hear that the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development is planning to increase the number of LKM counsellors to 11,000 next year.
However, it will indeed be challenging to find another 3,000 counsellors within such a short time. Even though there is an urgent need, many who have graduated with counselling degrees from overseas universities are still finding it hard to be licensed and registered as counsellors. One must graduate from the prescribed list of universities to be recognised as a counsellor by LKM.
I have a colleague who obtained her PhD from the United States and was even practising as a Licensed Professional Counsellor in Texas for several years. Moreover, she passed its stringent National Counsellor Examination and has completed over 3,000 practicum hours. Yet her application was not approved. LKM should approve such applications on a case by case basis.
Meanwhile, to meet the need for more counsellors, Deputy Prime Minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, who is also Women, Family and Community Development Minister, has announced that some 5,500 lay counsellors were trained last year. She adds that they only need to go through a screening test and attend a three-day course to get the qualification certificate.
But how safe is this stopgap measure? How does a lay counsellor who has not been professionally trained be able to counsel clients with their diverse mental health issues? And why is the government spending time and money to train lay counsellors when we already have scores of counsellors who have been professionally trained — albeit from overseas universities?
The Counsellors Act 1998 (Act 580), enacted 21 years ago in 1998, has 8,000 counsellors listed on the LKM website. With a population of 32 million, it works out to one counsellor for every 4,000 people. Of course, this is just an average across the country, so it is safe to assume that there will be more counsellors in the cities than in the smaller towns.
It is disappointing to note that LKM will only recognise and give accreditation to counsellors who have obtained their counselling degrees from its list of universities. Perhaps LKM can accommodate those graduates from reputable universities by requiring them to undergo additional modules or even extra courses.
So, I would like to appeal to LKM to also consider these overseas trained graduates, some of whom even have doctorates in counselling.
PETER SOO
Kluang, Johor
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times