The Emergence of Counseling in Traditional Cultures: Ultra-Orthodox Jewish and Arab Communities in Israel
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The Emergence of Counseling in Traditional Cultures: Ultra-Orthodox Jewish and Arab Communities in Israel Rachel L. Erhard & Dana Erhard-Weiss
Published online: 11 October 2007 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2007
Abstract The introduction of school counseling services into traditional communities that are unfamiliar with counseling is a complex multidimensional process that involves considerable ideological tensions, disputes and obstacles... This paper considers the different trajectories of the recent development of counseling services within two distinctive minority groups in Israel-Arab and the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. The dynamics of the change process for these traditional communities within the current Israeli social– political context lends support for the advancement of the international counseling community’s vision to promote human welfare and fairness as well as the healthy development of children and youth within diverse cultural contexts. Keywords School counseling . Israeli Arabs . Ultra-Orthodox Jews . International counseling initiatives
Introduction The postmodern world is a heterogeneous, multicultural mosaic of groups that differ in religions, cultures, values, beliefs and lifestyles. Despite increasing interactions among such groups, the cultural distance remains considerable. This reality presents many challenges to leaders in professional counseling as they attempt to develop counseling services in countries, societies and sectors that have never been exposed to the profession, have never used its services, and certainly have never been faced with the challenges of training professional counselors.
The paper is based on a Keynote address, IAC Conference: Jamaica, April 2004. R. L. Erhard (*) School of Education, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel e-mail: [email protected] D. Erhard-Weiss Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
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Int J Adv Counselling (2007) 29:149–158
The introduction of counseling into traditional communities that are unfamiliar with the profession, by definition entails a major second-order change that affects the very foundations of the culture’s basic paradigms (Watzlawick et al. 1979). Going beyond first-order change that modifies cultural paradigms while still maintaining continuity, second-order change represents an alteration of the perceptions, values, beliefs, norms, structures and/or goals held by individuals and social systems. Second-order change “conflicts with prevailing values of norms” and “requires individuals or groups to learn new approaches” (Watzlawick et al. 1979, p. 37). The fundamental core ideas underlying counseling may be alien if not severely at odds with traditional communities’ social practices and belief systems. Often perceived as a profession stressing “modernity”, freedom of will, individualism and western values, counseling may be seen as a threat to established values in traditional societies. Thus, it is inevitable that professionals implementing or shaping counse
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